Veteran offensive lineman Cade Mays is like all college football players, playing the waiting game and wondering what the 2020 season will look like.

Mays is also wondering if he will get to play in 2020 if there is a season. The Knoxville native, who transferred from Georgia, is still waiting on news about his eligibility from the NCAA. College sports’ governing body may vote on the one-time transfer rule next month or they may table that vote until January, which means Mays would have to win his appeal to play this fall.

While playing the waiting game, Mays joined his former high school coach Steve Mathews for a zoom chat on Wednesday that Mathews posted on his Twitter account. It’s the first comments from Cade about being a Vol since his decision to leave Athens, where he played the last two years.

“It feels great to be back home, back to where everything started,” Mays said. “Just being able to play with Cooper and being around him everyday. I think we helped each other a lot when we were in high school. It’s some of the best memories I have made playing football. We just helped each other mature a lot and helped each other in every aspect of our game.”

As Mays waits to return to Tennessee’s campus, the son of former Vol Kevin Mays is doing all he can to be ready.

“I think we are going to have a really good team. Really deep. We have a lot of people coming back. The first couple of days of spring ball things were really clicking,” Mays said.

“Practice was going really good. As far as personally, I’m just taking this time to use every day to my advantage while we aren’t able to be at the complex. Just trying to make every aspect of my game come along.”

Mays’ return back to East Tennessee also means being reunited with one of his biggest influences in Catholic offensive line coach Justin Anderson.

“He’s (Coach Anderson) has meant so much to me,” Mays said. “We really formed a relationship my freshman year. I really love his coaching style. He knew how to push me and push the rest of the guys to go out every Friday night and play like it was our last game. He always stressed to us how do you want to be remembered because we leave a legacy in everything that we do. He stressed that to us a lot. We wanted to go out and play hard every Friday night and make him proud.”

Proud is a good word to use when discussing Mays. Proud to be back in East Tennessee, proud to be back on the field with brother Cooper and proud to be wearing the Power T.