'Just steamroll through': Transfer tight end McCallan Castles is up to speed with Vols

When Tennessee tight ends coach Alec Abeln turned on McCallan Castles’ UC Davis tape, he saw a football player who could make plays, who was really athletic and, maybe most importantly, “a guy not afraid to stick his face in it.”

“A guy that’s played in a bunch of different systems,” Abeln added last week, “and knows football at a base level pretty well.”

Castles spent the spring trying to build on that base and get up to speed with Josh Heupel’s high-speed offense. Five months later he’s got a different look on the practice field. 

“(In the) spring … he’s trying to figure it out,” Abeln said. “He’s obviously older, he’s played a lot more, so he came (with) a little bit cleaner form. But now that he knows what he’s doing, being able to really focus on the detail things and play fast.”

Castles was second-team All-Big Sky after catching 32 passes for 347 yards and two touchdowns at UC Davis last season. He had 27 catches for 363 yards and four touchdowns in 2021, after catching 12 passes for 194 yards in the COVID spring season in 2021.

At Tennessee Castles slotted into the depth chart alongside fifth-year senior Jacob Warren and ahead of freshmen Ethan Davis and Emmanuel Okoye. 

That left Castles playing two roles when he first arrived at Tennessee — learning like any other newcomer while also trying to lead like the veteran he is.

“Obviously in the spring I was trying to learn and Ethan’s asking me questions and I go, oh man, I don’t know,” Castles said. “And then now that I’m more situated, it’s definitely trying to bring them along. 

“Obviously I’m still learning a lot of the offense so I have to kind of ease off on the coaching aspect, but I try to bring him along on the basic stuff that he can work on just like footwork and stuff that I’ve been doing for six years now. 

“So it’s like I can always help him on the basics and then the big picture.”

The Vols are looking to replace the production and versatility of Princeton Fant last season, when he caught 22 passes for 241 yards and three touchdowns, scored five rushing touchdowns on six carries as a fullback and even threw a 66-yard touchdown pass on a trick play against UT Martin. 

“I think I can be versatile in my own way, definitely not similar to Princeton,” Castles said. “He’s a different athlete compared to me. I’m just kind of here to do whatever they need me to do, whether it’s play, obviously tight end  is what I wanna do, but if I had to play the punt shield or play field goal, like I just wanna do whatever’s gonna make the team win.”

After the spring and summer, he’s more equipped to help Tennessee just do that. 

“I feel a ton more confident, like I can play more fast and free and I think it shows up on the practice field now,” Castles said. “I’m not trying to figure out what I’m doing before I’m already set and ready to go. I’m just executing.”

Now the next step is helping this Tennessee offense keep executing at the elite level it was executing at last season, when the Vols lead college football in scoring at 46.1 points per game.

That’s what has Castles and others excited to play their role this season.

“I think it’s just everybody’s ready to reload,” Castles said. “We’ve got guys that are positioned coming in that can play and it’s, you can just see on practice field every day, we’re getting better and more explosive against our own defense and once we got against another (team) like Virginia or somebody, it’s gonna come to fruition and I think we’re just gonna keep going one week at a time and just steamroll through.”