Category Archives: Recruiting

Gameday Today: On players becoming bullies and Caravans becoming Corollas

Football

That quarterback competition between Quinten Dormady and Jarrett Guarantano? It’s still a competition and probably will be for much longer than you want it to be. Meanwhile, Trey Smith is looking like he’s well on his way to becoming only the fifth true freshman to start a season opener on the Tennessee offensive line, which by the way, is intentionally conditioning itself to be a bully this season. I am generally anti-bullying thanks to a guy named Brad Smith (maybe not his real name) who will forever be an extremely huge and mean sixth-grader in my mind, but I like my offensive linemen to push people around, and if a little attitude helps them in that task, I am all for it.
 
Oh, look. The Big Orange Caravan is apparently downsizing to a couple of Corollas with car magnets and car flags road tripping to Nashville, Memphis, and Chattanooga with an old school foldable paper map. Tri Cities, y’all are out of luck, and they don’t care how much money you spend at the Strawberry Plains exit every Football Saturday.
 
A bit of good news, that game that Tennessee is supposed to play against Georgia Tech at the new Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta to open the season? It’s going to be held at Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta. And the odds of the retractable roof just outright falling off and squishing both teams in the middle of the second quarter diminishes just a little more every day!
 

NFL Draft

Yeah, Jon Gruden says that Josh Dobbs is a “great sleeper” in this year’s NFL Draft. I don’t think he means that he has great sleep technique, which is something Derek Dooley might have meant. And speaking of Dobbs, Todd McShay thinks he could even sneak into the first round of the NFL Draft. That thing I said about McShay over-thinking things? Never mind. Oh, and Tennessee defensive end Darrell Taylor is getting all crunk just watching all of the attention Derek Barnett is getting.
 

Recruiting

Two of Tennessee’s commitments for the 2018 recruiting class are in the ESPN 300: 4-star offensive tackle Cade Mays and 4-star receiver Alontae Taylor. And in hoops recruiting, wing Yves Pons and power forward Derrick Walker both got bumps in the final Top 247 rankings for the Class of 2017.
 
And finally, the Vols have offered 4-star defensive end Cameron Latu from Salt Lake City.

Gameday Today: Everybody’s becoming something, and somebody somewhere is (maybe?) throwing shade

FOOTBALL

Nigel Warrior is apparently turning into the player coaches (and everybody else) thought he could be. Meanwhile, Darrin Kirkland Jr. is apparently becoming Jalen Reeves-Maybin, and injured receiver Brandon Johnson is becoming so bored that he’s sneaking into practice reps. And the nickel is becoming the 4-3: Word is that Tennessee is playing around with more standard 4-3 defensive alignments instead of the mostly nickel packages they ran last year. So who’s in line for that third LB spot? It’s looking like Austin Smith, Colton Jumper, and Quart’e Sapp. 
 
And finally, the Orange and White Game: Where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.

NFL DRAFT

Another NFL draft analyst has VFL Derek Barnett going to the Baltimore Ravens as the 16th pick in this year’s draft. Most of the rest of that article talks about how that’s in contrast to Barnett’s somewhat disappointing metrics from the NFL Combine and Pro Day. Aren’t the numbers supposed to help you predict what you don’t know? And isn’t what someone actually did better evidence than an educated guess at what you think they might do in the future? But what do I know?
 

RECRUITING

BONUS

The headline for this piece says that Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder has thrown shade at new Tennessee athletic director John Currie. Listen, Snyder is even older than I am, and he has no idea what “throw shade” means, and anyway, since when does singing faint praise for your incoming boss necessarily indicate an insult at your old boss?

Gameday Today: Easter greetings run the gambit as Tennessee chases big guys

A few recruiting tidbits this morning: Georgia legacy Tommy Tremble recently visited Tennessee and called it his “best visit.” ($) Tennessee is also chasing offensive lineman Cooper Mays ($). And the Vols have offered defensive tackle Kristian Williams, who now plans to visit.

The Easter greetings from the official Twitter accounts of SEC schools ranged from Ole Miss’ Hugh Freeze boldly going straight S.M. Lockridge to Tennessee’s, which might as well contain the caption, “This Easter holiday brought to you by Nike.” (They appear to have changed that, if you look at the tweet now, but the screen cap below is from the one originally embedded in the post from Gridiron Now.)

Happy Easter

 

3-star Shatar McClay commits to Tennessee

The Vols picked up a commitment from 6-0, 165 3-star cornerback Shatar McClay yesterday. Coaches Walt Wells and Charlton Warren were the lead recruiters for McClay, and he chose Tennessee over offers from Texas A&M, Kentucky, Western Kentucky, Memphis, Indiana, and Samford.

McClay is the fourth commitment of Tennessee’s 2018 class, and he joins 5-star offensive tackle Cade Mays, 4-star athlete Alontae Tayler, and 3-star offensive guard Ollie Lane. It’s early, but Tennessee now ranks 28th in 247’s team recruiting rankings.

Tennessee first offered McClay over a year ago, and he told 247 that he’d wanted to commit for the Vols since receiving the offer, but he decided to wait until his 18th birthday to make his announcement. His Twitter handle is @mcclay_shatar. 

Although he does look like a fumble waiting to happen, he looks like an electric athlete.