Tennessee will open its 2024 campaign against Chattanooga at Neyland Stadium on Aug. 31.

In anticipation of the season opener, VolReport is highlighting a former Vols player whose jersey number matches the amount of days until kickoff.

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With 55 days to go, Ray Graves, who was an offensive lineman for two seasons under head coach Robert Neyland in the early 1940s, is selected.

An East Tennessee native, Graves played at Rhea Central High School in Dayton and began his college career at Tennessee Wesleyan in Athens in 1938. After one season, Graves transferred to Tennessee ahead of the 1939 season.

Graves played center on the Vols' 1939 team that finished 10-1 and reached the Rose Bowl. The following season, Tennessee again went undefeated in the regular season before earning a Sugar Bowl invite.

By his senior season in 1941, Graves was named a team captain and named All-SEC and was later selected by the Philadelphia Eagles in the ninth round of the 1942 NFL Draft.

Graves began his coaching career at Tennessee, where he spent two seasons coaching the offensive line in 1944-45. He returned to the Eagles as an assistant coach and scout, even resuming his playing career with the franchise briefly due to injuries.

Graves got back into the college ranks as an assistant for former Tennessee player Bobby Dodd at Georgia Tech in 1951. He served on Dodd's staff for nine seasons before taking his first and only head coaching job at Florida in 1960, replacing another former Tennessee player Bob Woodruff after 10 seasons.

Graves led the Gators to unprecedented success in his decade-long tenure in Gainesville, leading Florida to 70 wins, including five bowl appearances. Among his biggest accomplishments was recruiting Steve Spurrier from Science Hill High School in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Spurrier was the program's first Heisman Trophy winner in 1966.

When Graves retired from coaching following the 1969 season, he was the winningest coach in school history. He became Florida's athletic director, a position he held for nearly 20 years.

Graves was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1990. He was Tennessee's oldest-living letterman before his death in 2015 at the age of 96.

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