{"id":54819,"date":"2025-11-20T23:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T23:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/54819\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T23:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T23:14:09","slug":"brazell-staley-and-matthews-the-trio-florida-must-contain-wruf-98-1-fm-850-am","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/54819\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazell, Staley and Matthews: The Trio Florida Must Contain &#8211; WRUF 98.1 FM | 850 AM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wide receivers make plays happen either when running routes, catching passes or scoring touchdowns. The No. 20 Tennessee Volunteers have an elite wide receiver room with a tremendous trio group.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Chris Brazell II, Braylon Staley and Mike Matthews. Three players who could break the Gator\u2019s defense.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 6-5 Junior transfer from Tulane, <a href=\"https:\/\/utsports.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/chris-brazzell-ii\/21983\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Brazell II<\/a>, ranks top of the SEC in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. He is a semifinalist for The Biletnikoff Award. Entering week 13, the star playmaker for the Vols is tied 10th in the FBS for receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. Brazzell II has 52 catches for 873 yards and eight touchdowns for the season. He averages 16.8 receiving yards per catch. Brazell had seven receiving touchdowns throughout the first five games, marking the most in program history for the first five games.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Freshman <a href=\"https:\/\/utsports.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/braylon-staley\/22036\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Braylon Staley<\/a> ranks fifth in the SEC for receiving yards (761) and was named SEC Freshman of the Week after a Vols win over Arkansas. In Tennessee\u2019s win over No. 6 Alabama, Staley led his receiving core in receptions with 10 catches for 92 yards. In ten games, He has six touchdowns. He was named a semifinalist for the 2025 Shaun Alexander Freshman of the Year Award.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/utsports.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/mike-matthews\/22019\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Matthews<\/a> has 41 catches for 667 yards, 11th in the SEC, and four touchdowns. His best game was on the road win at Kentucky, where he had a career-long 62-yard touchdown catch. Matthews has had three games with over 100-yards receiving.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the field, the trio is eager to learn.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/247sports.com\/college\/tennessee\/longformarticle\/kelsey-pope-tennessee-vols-wide-receivers-coach-assesses-wrs-florida-game-braylon-staley-mike-matthews-chris-brazzell-262130025\/#2750704\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cThey\u2019ve been listening and buying in, and they\u2019ve been sponges the entire year\u201d wide receiver coach Kelsey Pope said. \u201cIt is rare. It\u2019s cool, but there\u2019s still more out there for us to go get.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On the other side of the ball, the Florida defense will need to slow down Tennessee\u2019s pass game. Out for the Gators are Michai Boireau, George Gumbs Jr., LJ McCray, Ty Jackson, Aaron Gates, Micheal Caraway Jr., Dijon Johnson and Javion Toombs. However, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wruf.com\/headlines\/2025\/11\/20\/gators-injury-report-caleb-banks-back-gumbs-out\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defensive tackle Caleb Banks is available to play<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Considering the Gators injury-filled defense, will the backups step up to defend the swamp?<\/p>\n<p> Category: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wruf.com\/headlines\/category\/gator-football\/\" rel=\"category tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gators Football<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wruf.com\/headlines\/category\/uncategorized\/\" rel=\"category tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Uncategorized<\/a>    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wide receivers make plays happen either when running routes, catching passes or scoring touchdowns. The No. 20 Tennessee&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,3112],"class_list":{"0":"post-54819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-not-latest"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}