Kelsey Pope

Title:
Wide Receivers

updated summer 2025

The developer of a Biletnikoff Award winner and multiple NFL Draft picks, Kelsey Pope has established himself as one of the nation’s top wide receiver coaches. Pope was tabbed to the role by Josh Heupel in March 2022 after serving as an offensive analyst in 2021. He enters his fifth season on staff at Tennessee in 2025.

THE POPE FILE

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Birthdate: May 8, 1992
Hometown: Sylacauga, Alabama
Education: Samford, 2014 (bachelor’s in public administration)
Playing Experience: Samford - WR (2010-13)
Wife: Dacia
Children: Knight

COACHING HISTORY

2017-18: Ohio Northern, Running Backs
2018-19: Shorter (Ga.) University, Assistant Wide Receivers Coach
2019: Tennessee Tech, Wide Receivers
2020: Gardner-Webb, Pass Game Coordinator/Wide Receivers
2021-22: Tennessee, Offensive Analyst
2022-present: Tennessee, Wide Receivers

POSTSEASON APPEARANCES AS A COACH (4)

2024 CFP First Round – Tennessee
2024 Citrus Bowl – Tennessee
2022 Orange Bowl - Tennessee
2021 Music City Bowl – Tennessee

NFL WIDE RECEIVERS COACHED

Dont'e Thornton Jr., Las Vegas Raiders, 2025
Ramel Keyton, Las Vegas Raiders, 2024
Jalin Hyatt, New York Giants, 2023
Cedric Tillman, Cleveland Browns, 2023
Velus Jones Jr., Chicago Bears, 2022

In Pope’s previous four years with the program, the Volunteers have generated an SEC-best 26 individual 100-yard receiving games and multiple first-team All-SEC recipients, while sending at least one player to the NFL every season. Tennessee’s four drafted wide receivers since the spring of 2022 ranks tied for second in the nation over the span. UT has had a player crack the 60-reception single-season mark and enter the school’s top 10 four times in the past four seasons.

Senior Dont’e Thornton Jr. became the latest path-to-the-draft success story in the fall of 2024. The Oregon transfer flourished in his second season in Knoxville, leading the nation in average yards per catch at 25.4 and 50-plus yard catches with six. Thornton Jr. was tops on the team with 661 receiving yards and six touchdown grabs, helping guide the Vols to their first College Football Playoff and a No. 8 final ranking. Thornton Jr. then shined at the 2025 NFL Combine, clocking a blistering 4.30 40-yard dash. He was selected in the fourth round of the 2025 NFL Draft with the No. 108 overall pick by the Las Vegas Raiders.

In 2023, sophomore Squirrel White carried the torch for a group that was decimated by injuries and finished with 67 catches for 803 yards and two scores. The 67 receptions ranked fifth in the SEC and tied for seventh in Vol single-season annals. Senior Ramel Keyton ranked second on the squad with 35 receptions for 642 yards and six touchdowns, which was 10th in the SEC. Keyton signed a free agent deal with the Las Vegas Raiders following the 2024 NFL Draft.

Few position groups in college football made the striking impact the Tennessee wide receivers did in 2022. Whether it was through explosive plays or constant pressure on defenses, Pope’s wideout group paved the way for the program’s first 11-win season in two decades, and it did it against ranked foes the likes of Pittsburgh, Alabama, LSU, Florida, Kentucky and Clemson.

Tennessee broke 13 team single-season records and boasted the nation’s No. 1 scoring offense (46.1 ppg) and total offense (525.5). Pope’s unit led the nation in receiving plays of 30+ yards (40), 40+ yards (27), 50+ yards (15) and 60+ yards (9). The 27 40+ yard plays were the most by an FBS program since 2018. Jalin Hyatt, Cedric Tillman, Bru McCoy, Keyton and White proved to be difference makers, and Pope was named a finalist for the 2022 Football Scoop Wide Receivers Coach of the Year.

Hyatt became the most explosive playmaker in the sport and rewrote the Tennessee single-season record books. He tallied 67 catches for 1,267 yards and a school-record 15 touchdowns in the fall of 2022. He captured the SEC receiving triple crown, leading the league in touchdowns, receptions per game (5.6) and receiving yards per game (105.6).

With 11.6 million people watching around the globe and before a sold-out Neyland Stadium crowd, Hyatt delivered one of the greatest receiving performances in college football history on the Third Saturday in October 2022 vs. Alabama. He caught six passes for 207 yards and shattered the school single-game record for touchdown catches with five, a mark that tied the SEC record. His 30 points that night — also a UT record — contributed to the Vols’ epic 52-49 victory over the Tide. Hyatt became the first FBS player with five or more receiving touchdowns vs. an AP top-five team in 25 years.

Under the tutelage of Pope, Hyatt became the 13th unanimous first-team All-American in Tennessee history and the first Vol wide receiver to achieve the feat. The exclamation point on the epic individual season came when Hyatt became the first UT player to win the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s most outstanding receiver.

Pope’s development of the room did not stop with Hyatt. Transfer McCoy, playing his first season in a Vol uniform, caught 52 passes for 667 yards and four scores. Tillman, who battled through an ankle injury most of the season, still hauled in 37 passes for 417 yards and three touchdowns. White, then a true freshman, logged 30 receptions for 481 yards and two scores, including a significant one to help the Vols beat ACC champion Clemson in the Orange Bowl. McCoy, Keyton and White all caught touchdown passes against a Clemson defense that was among the nation’s best.

Tennessee’s success carried over into the spring of 2023. Both Hyatt and Tillman were invited to the NFL Combine and then heard their names called in the third round of the 2023 NFL Draft. Hyatt went No. 73 overall to the New York Giants, and Tillman was chosen with the following pick at No. 74 by the Cleveland Browns. Tennessee was the only program in the nation with multiple wide receivers chosen through the first three rounds of the 2023 NFL Draft.

In 2021, Pope was instrumental in the holistic development of a wide receivers room that featured multiple players with 60+ receptions for the first time in school history. The Vols were one of only two SEC programs with multiple players with seven or more receiving touchdowns in 2021. Meanwhile, Tennessee led the SEC in 30+ yard receiving plays (30), 40+ yard receiving plays (18) and 70+ yard receiving plays (4).

Tillman entered the 2021 season with just eight catches for 124 yards and no touchdowns in his first three seasons combined. In his first season with Pope, he finished the year with 64 catches for 1,081 yards and 12 scores, becoming the Vols’ ninth 1,000-yard receiver all-time and first since 2011. He finished sixth in the SEC in receptions, good for eighth in single-season school history.

All-SEC senior Velus Jones Jr. caught 62 passes — 10th in school history and 10th in the SEC — for 807 yards and seven scores. Jones Jr. was tabbed the SEC Co-Special Teams Player of the Year and earned Reese’s Senior Bowl All-America honors. Jones went on to be selected in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears at pick No. 71.

Pope was the pass game coordinator and wide receivers coach at Gardner-Webb for one season prior to joining Heupel’s staff. He previously served as the wide receivers coach at Tennessee Tech in 2019, a season that saw the Golden Eagles post the second-best total offensive output in school history.

Pope mentored freshman wide receiver Metrius Fleming, who was an All-Ohio Valley Conference selection and a four-time OVC Newcomer of the Week recipient. Fleming hauled in 47 passes for 629 yards and three touchdowns, while rushing for two more scores and adding a 91-yard kickoff return touchdown. He averaged 26.5 yards per return and finished with more than 1,200 all-purpose yards.

Meanwhile, senior Darrius Stafford added 41 catches for 515 yards and three scores as Tennessee Tech averaged over 380 yards of total offense per game and put up 29.0 points per contest.

Pope spent a season as an assistant receivers coach at Shorter (Georgia) University on the Division II level in 2018. He helped guide a group of receivers that accounted for more than 2,000 yards and saw three of his pass catchers post seasons of 400 yards apiece.

Pope got his coaching start at Ohio Northern in 2017 where he worked with the running backs. He oversaw a run game that tallied 195.5 yards per game on the ground and a stellar 435.7 offensive yards per contest. Running back Christaan Williams rushed for 1,623 yards and 11 touchdown on his way to All-OAC honors and second-team All-America accolades.

A standout receiver himself, Pope starred at Samford from 2010-13, finishing as the Bulldogs’ all-time leader in career receptions (250) and single-game catches with 17 against The Citadel in 2011. He led the squad in receiving for three straight seasons and amassed 2,385 receiving yards and 13 scores during his career.

A three-time All-SoCon selection, Pope spent time in the NFL as a player with the Arizona Cardinals.

He earned his degree in public administration from Samford in 2014.

He and his wife, Dacia, reside in Knoxville. They have a son, Knight.