When Caleb Herring got to Tennessee's campus as a freshman, he weighed around 205 pounds. A year later, the edge rusher is up to 250 pounds and has reached as high as 255.

The process of putting on 45 pounds of productive muscle isn't for the weak. Outside of the ample time in the gym, there's a caloric mark that needs to be reached daily.

It isn't just junk, either. The emphasis is protein to help build the muscle. Herring described what his daily eating schedule consisted of as he bulked up.

TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM

Right out of bed, Herring had breakfast. This consisted of eggs and grits. Then, he grabbed a cup of apple juice.

What followed was the first shakes of many during the course of a day. He would have two shakes before heading to the facility for a workout.

After the workout, Herring would hit Smokey's Sports Grill, a restaurant in the Anderson Training Facility built to help athletes meet their nutritional needs. Next was 'one or two' more shakes.

Between his lunch at Smokey's and dinner, Herring added another two or three shakes to his diet. When dinner finally came, he'd have another shake to cap it off.

This results in as Herring put it, 'A whole lot of shakes.' On average, Herring was drinking up to eight protein shakes a day to help build muscle. In all, he his shakes and food combined for around 5,000 calories.

The unsung hero behind the nutrition was Ethan Bauer, the team's Director of Sports Nutrition. He's been in the role since Josh Heupel took over the program in 2021 and oversees the nutrition of all 20 varsity sports at Tennessee.

MORE FROM VOLREPORT: Tennessee LEO Joshua Josephs: 'You can't really plan for us'

Part of the process was making different flavors to help Herring get through drinking so much of the same thing every day.

"I have Ethan, he makes little protein shakes," Herring said. "Sometimes it'll be pineapple mango shakes, sometimes I'll get strawberry. Then, there's like those little Gatorade shakes, little Gatorade bottle shakes."

Now, the goal is to maintain. During fall camp, it's common to shed weight. Once the season starts, Herring is hoping to stick around 250.

There are some differences playing nearly 50 pounds heavier, though. While there are benefits of strength, he needed to get conditioned to playing bigger.

"Honestly, my frame carries it well so it really hasn't been much of a difference," Herring said. "I'd say whenever it comes to conditioning, my first week of conditioning, it was a little challenging trying to get used to it."

Herring is expected to be one of the many pieces of Rodney Garner's defensive line that plays in the rotation. As a sophomore, he is likely third in line at LEO behind projected top NFL pick James Pearce Jr. and Joshua Josephs.

–––––

– TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM.

– ENJOY VOLREPORT WITH A PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION.

– SUBSCRIBE TO THE VOLREPORT YOUTUBE CHANNEL.

– FOLLOW VOLREPORT ON TWITTER: @TennesseeRivals, @ByNoahTaylor, @RyanTSylvia, @Dale_Dowden, @ShayneP_Media.

–––––