Tennessee Vols tight end named a player to watch in the 2026 NFL Draft

A Tennessee Vols tight end was named this week as a "player to watch" in the 2026 NFL Draft. 

With the 2025 NFL Draft now behind us, Pro Football Focus is already taking a look ahead to next year's draft. 

On Tuesday, PFF's Max Chadwick detailed 10 tight ends to know for the 2026 NFL Draft. And he included Vols tight end Miles Kitselman among those 10 tight ends.

From PFF: Following a year at the JUCO level and two seasons at Alabama as a backup, Kitselman had a breakout senior year after transferring to Tennessee. 

He finished 2024 as the seventh-most-valuable tight end in the nation, according to PFF’s Wins Above Average metric, and ranks fourth among returning tight ends. Kitselman was also one of four tight ends in the country with top-25 PFF grades as a receiver and a run blocker. He hasn’t dropped a pass in his career and is capable of displacing defenders in the run game at 256 pounds.

Kitselman, who started his career at Alabama before transferring to Tennessee, is an under-the-radar player who excels in a lot of areas that often go unnoticed (such as run-blocking and pass-blocking).

The Kansas native is also a key team leader for Tennessee, which was evidenced by the fact that he was one of several Vols players to take the podium after UT's spring game last month (which was the day that Josh Heupel announced that quarterback Nico Iamaleava was no longer with the program), despite the fact that Kitselman has missed most of spring practice due to injury. 

Those traits -- leadership and blocking -- should have Kitselman on plenty of NFL teams' radars. 

The 2025 season is Kitselman's final season of eligibility.