Gameday on Rocky Top

Yesterday, we showed how and why bigger is better along the defensive front. It’s true. Size matters, at least for defensive tackles, ends, and linebackers. It means the offense can’t push you around; they have to go around you to the locations of your choosing. It means the defensive backs can do their jobs first instead of making themselves vulnerable by overhelping in run support. It gets offenses off schedule, forcing them into difficult down-and-distance situations.

It’s not absolutely necessary, and it’s absolutely not sufficient, but heft is a significant factor in the competence of a team’s defensive front. As a general rule, you want the cumulative weight of the seven guys closest to the line of scrimmage to be 1,800 pounds or more.

How do the Tennessee Volunteers look by this metric? Pretty good, actually, and it’s getting even better.

The 2017 season: Prior to Pruitt

In 2017, the year before Jeremy Pruitt arrived, Tennessee’s starting defensive front weighed in at 1,817 pounds. At 295, Kendal Vickers wasn’t the biggest guy on the roster, but the fact that he started every game at one of the tackle spots meant he was the best option there. Kahlil McKenzie and Shy Tuttle took turns next to Vickers at the other tackle spot, McKenzie starting eight games and Tuttle starting four. Both of these guys were huge, McKenzie at 320 and Tuttle at 308.

Still operating as a base 4-3 defense, there were two defensive end spots in 2017, and the season’s starters were some combination of Kyle Phillips, Jonathan Kongbo, and Darrell Taylor. Those guys were 263, 264, and 254, respectively. After Cortez McDowell was lost for the season, the starting linebackers were almost exclusively some combination of Quart’e Sapp (222), Daniel Bituli (235), and Colton Jumper (229).

Averaging the weights where necessary for positions occupied at different times by different players, that puts the cumulative defensive front seven weight at 1,817 pounds, just over the 1,800-pound threshold. It’s also squarely in the middle of yesterday’s table listing the Top 20 defenses of 2009 and their cumulative defensive front weights.

As proof that just being big doesn’t make you good, the 2017 team finished only 10th in the SEC and 81st in the nation in total defense. But they were big enough to be good. Put another way, weight wasn’t the problem in 2017, something you probably already suspected.

The 2018 season: Pruitt’s Year 1

Things were already better in Jeremy Pruitt’s very first season, as his first defensive front weighed in at 1,866 pounds. Shy Tuttle had lost a little weight from 2017, but he was still 300 pounds, and he started every game at nose tackle in Pruitt’s 3-4 base defense. Kyle Phillips started every game at one of the defensive end positions, and he’d added ten pounds to his frame to weigh in at 273. The other defensive end position was manned by the massive Alexis Johnson, who was listed at 314 pounds. He started every game as well.

The four linebacker spots were primarily Darrell Taylor and Jonathan Kongbo on the outside and Daniel Bituli and Darrin Kirkland, Jr. on the inside. Taylor and Kongbo had both moved from defensive end to outside linebacker and had both lost some weight for the move, but they were the right size for their new positions. Taylor was 247 and Kongbo was 254. Bituli had gained almost 10 pounds and was at 244, and Kirkland, coming off a medical redshirt, was 234.

That made the front seven 1,866 pounds. If you put them on the 2009 list, they would have been the fourth-heaviest front seven that season, behind only Alabama, Florida, and LSU.

The defense was better that year, too, although still far from where they wanted to be. The finished the season 9th in the SEC and 49th in the nation in total defense. After allowing an average of 412.9 yards per game in 2017, they allowed only 377.4 in 2018. Rushing defense, in particular, improved dramatically. In 2017, the team allowed 251.3 rushing yards per game, putting them dead last in the SEC and 125th in the nation. But last year, they were 9th in the SEC and 52nd in the nation, allowing only 154.5 rushing yards per game.

The upcoming season: Pruitt’s Year 2

It looks like Tennessee’s defensive front seven is growing yet again this year. Due to the graduation of all of last year’s starters on the line and the uncertain status of Kirkland, we can’t know this fall’s starting lineup for sure yet, but making some reasonable assumptions and looking at the roster suggests that the cumulative weight of the starting front seven could creep up to a full 1,889 pounds this season.

Emmitt Gooden is almost certain to start along the defensive line, as he’s the only returning lineman with any starts to his name. He’s currently listed at 302 pounds, which is a good start.

Predicting what the NCAA is going to decide about transfers’ immediate eligibility requests is riskier than picking games against the spread, but if you were betting, you’d put your money on Michigan transfer Aubrey Solomon being eligible to play this fall for the Vols. The former 5-star recruit with experience playing for the Wolverines is walking into a wide-open opportunity on Rocky Top, so if he’s eligible, he’s almost certain to start as well. He’s 306 pounds.

The third lineman is anybody’s guess at this point. The candidates include Kingston Harris (312), Greg Emerson (310), Kurott Garland (303), Matthew Butler (285), and John Mincey (280), but my money is on Savion Williams, who’s a monster at 315 pounds and the nation’s top JUCO recruit at the position this cycle. If the defensive line starters are Gooden, Solomon, and Williams, Tennessee suddenly has three 300-pounders on the line of scrimmage.

Darrell Taylor will man one of the OLB positions, and he’s currently listed at 255 pounds, up eight from last year. Daniel Bituli will be one of the other guys, and he’s listed at 243, essentially the same weight as he was last year.

If Kirkland decides to play this fall instead of using the time to rehab and ready himself for the NFL Draft, he’ll play as well. He’s listed at 225, down even from last season.

If Kirkland does not play, there will be two starting spots at linebacker up for grabs. Here are the guys vying for them (in order of weight): Kivon Bennett (251), Jordan Allen (249), Quavaris Crouch (242), Deandre Johnson (241), Shanon Reid (230), Henry To’oto’o (230), Will Ignont (229), J.J. Peterson (228), and Solon Page III (220). If I had to guess, I’d say Ignont and Johnson would earn those spots first just based on them having more experience than the others, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s someone else. Newcomer Crouch is especially intriguing, as he arrives on campus in a ready-made body.

But if it’s Ignont and Johnson, that would make the cumulative weight of the defensive front seven 1,891 pounds (1,889 if it’s Kirkland instead of Ignont). On that old 2009 list of the Top 20 defenses with their respective weights, Tennessee’s 2019 edition would be the second-heaviest, behind only Alabama.

Does the 2009 benchmark still apply in 2019?

Yes, things may have changed since 2009. Lines may have gotten even bigger. We’ll take a look at that starting next week.

But for now, just know two things: Bigger is better along the defensive front, and Tennessee’s defensive front is getting bigger.

You can’t really say that Tennessee head coach Jeremy Pruitt lacks candor, although he’s not especially forthcoming, either. Mostly, the guy just seems like he’d rather be coaching football than talking to you, so while the media may be able to extract information from him under the glare of the lights at required media sessions, you’re otherwise left to read between the lines.

To the degree that he hasn’t expressly said so, it’s become readily apparent over the short time that Pruitt’s been on campus that one of his lead goals is increasing the size and strength of his roster. For example, we know that even though his running back stable currently consists of guys who are on the smaller/faster end of the continuum, he prefers bigger bodies at that position. When he goes shopping for running backs, he’s generally in the 200- to 230-pound aisle, and he stops and stares longingly at the window display of the sculpted 230-pounder. We know that because he’s said it. Not in that way, of course, because metaphors are for people with time for such nonsense. Pruitt just says he likes big backs and puts the whistle back between his lips.

It’s not too much of a stretch to conclude that his preference for heft applies to certain other positions as well and that he’s working toward that goal by not only remodeling the guys he has, but also by adding guys who already fit the blueprint or who can get there quickly.

We’ll be able to tell the degree to which he’s improving the size and strength of his roster by comparing the before and after pictures, but before we do that, I wanted to establish first, by something other than mere intuition, that size is in fact of great importance to some positions.

The 2011 edition of our annual magazine included an article on this very subject. Written by Bud Elliott, who is now SB Nation’s National Recruiting Analyst, the article not only proves that size matters along the defensive front seven but also explains why.

Here are the evergreen bits from that piece, scrubbed of references to a certain former coach of which you don’t care to be reminded. You’re welcome for that.

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The following is from Volunteers Kickoff 2011, the 2011 edition of our annual preseason publication covering Tennessee Football.

Does size matter?

Below is a list of the top twenty defenses of 2009 and the respective cumulative weights of the teams’ defensive front sevens.

As you can see, 90% of the best 20 defenses of 2009 were 1,780 pounds or more in the front seven. More than half eclipsed the 1,800-pound mark. Is that a coincidence? Probably not. Yes, it may be possible to be both small and good, just as it may be possible to be both large and bad, but although size may be neither necessary nor sufficient, the figures above suggest that it is indeed a significant factor for success at the major college level.

Why does size matter?

So what is it about size that makes a difference? For one thing, bigger teams are able to better hold the point of attack and reduce guesswork. Another is that the teams with better defenses are typically stocked with more upperclassmen, which tend to be bigger because they’ve spent more time in the strength and conditioning program. That seems to be the case with a few of the teams on the list above, most notably Oklahoma State, which had ten senior starters on defense at one point in the 2009 season.

A big front seven also allows a team to better control gaps along the line. In particular, large defensive ends like those Saban used at LSU allow a defense to control the C gap (between the playside tackle and the tight end). Likewise, having a large outside linebacker with excellent instincts who can help control the C gap can allow a team to be more flexible with the defensive end. The central tenet here is that the player must hold his ground. A 240-pound defensive end or a 215-pound linebacker generally won’t be able to control the C gap in the SEC.

A smaller defensive line must rely more on speed and quickness, attempting to get around the blocker in front of him rather than stonewalling him, controlling him, and then shedding the block to make the tackle. Penetration certainly has its place in defensive football, but an entire defense should not be based on the concept. It leads to maddening inconsistency and players being out of position. For instance, if a defender attempts to go around a blocker to the left as opposed to taking him on and defeating him, the running back can simply go right, using the blocker to shield himself from the defender. This is where we get the term “overpursuit.”

Linebackers that are 215 pounds simply aren’t populating elite defenses. Those that are 220 pounds are also becoming increasingly rare as teams are able to find the size needed to stand up to blockers. They are fine as long as the team has monster defensive linemen capable of absorbing multiple blockers. But generally, a team of small LBs grouped with small defensive linemen, even if fast, is not a recipe for elite defensive football.

The consequences of being too small

A bigger front seven allows a team to be substantially better against the run than a smaller team. To compensate for that, a smaller defense must rely on numbers. They take seven and make it eight by bringing the safety closer to the line of scrimmage. That’s fine in theory, as the defense has an extra defender for which the offense cannot account. But the flip side of the strategy is that it leaves the defense vulnerable to the play-action pass. If a safety is focused on the run and very involved in run defense, he’s likely to be more aggressive in pursuing run plays—and falling for run fakes. And when the quarterback pulls the ball back on the run fake and hits the tight end streaking down the field in the area vacated by the safety, the plan doesn’t look so great.

The overuse of safeties in the run game also presents the problem of predictable coverages. If a safety lines up close to the line of scrimmage, an offensive coordinator can be confident he is not going to see cover two or cover four. Offenses are just too good in this day and age to be telegraphing coverages.

Size increases defensive flexibility

Instead of doing any of that, what . . . big defenses do is simply defend the run game using a large and talented front seven. Yes, the safeties are still involved, but not to the extent they are in very small defenses. This allows the safeties to play pass first and run second, a major advantage for the defensive back.

One might worry that this approach would leave the defense devoid of speed and vulnerable to the outside run. But from the list above, that doesn’t appear to be the case. The best twenty defenses aren’t necessarily the fastest in the country, but they are probably the strongest, and that strength produces gap integrity. And with that gap integrity comes the ability to keep leverage on the ball. Put simply, a big defense refuses to be run on between the tackles and forces the opposition to bounce the play to the outside. You’d think that with a bigger and presumably slower player the big defense would find trouble here, but that just isn’t the case.  Why? Because the running back is forced to go laterally for a long distance as the defense is not allowing him to cut the ball up the field, which buys the defense time to read and adjust to the play.

What about passing downs? These bigger defenses have a variety of responses to passing downs, but the most common theme here is that they force long down and distance through excellent run defense on first and second down. Better to defend with decent pass rushers against 3^rd and 7 than with great pass rushers against 3^rd and 4.

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Conclusion

That article went on to look at the weight of Tennessee’s defensive front seven heading in to the 2011 season and found that it was trending in the right direction yet still had a distance to travel. The group weighed in at 1808 pounds — about middle-of-the-pack on the above list — and the team finished seventh in the SEC and 27th in the nation in total defense, giving up 340.5 yards per game and 5.43 yards per play.

So, yes, having a big and strong defensive front is important to a team’s success. As Bud points out, it’s neither necessary nor sufficient, but there is little doubt that it helps.

May is often the longest month for college football fans. And around here, this May falls in place behind the quietest spring practice I can remember. Basketball continues to own an unusual percentage of the conversation; it comes with the territory of the third-highest paying contract in the game and the process by which that contract came about. You’ll find more Tennessee players in 2019 NBA mock drafts than the actual 2019 NFL Draft and its 2020 mock counterparts. And the baseball Vols were ranked 20th last week before a sweep at #5 Arkansas bounced them from the polls, but they should make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2005.

Some of it is the other sports being at recent or historic highs. Some of it is football now on an 11-year run of 67-70. But this feels like the quietest build to a football season in a long time.

Is that all bad? There’s little good in the wearing down process of a decade-long decline. But perhaps there’s something healthy to be found not in lower expectations, but more reasonable ones.

Consider: what is 7-5 worth in 2019?

That’s Tennessee’s over/under in Vegas. If the Vols hit that mark, it would obviously be progress from 4-8 and 5-7 the last two years. But it would also represent more progress than either of Jeremy Pruitt’s two predecessors achieved in their second year.

The proverbial year two bump has been a part of our vernacular since Urban Meyer showed up at Florida. The last two times we’ve had a chance to see it? Well…

2011: Burn bright, burn fast, wait now we’re on fire

Among the “Tennessee’s Back!” False Alarm Hall of Fame – 2009 Georgia, 2013 South Carolina, the first six weeks of 2016 – few felt more promising than 2011 Cincinnati. With a nod to this year’s BYU matchup in week two, the Bearcats and their future-Vol head coach came to Knoxville in week two eight years ago. Derek Dooley’s Vols were coming off a 6-7 year zero one, 8-5 in games decided when the clock originally hit zero.

The numbers from that game are still eye-opening. Tyler Bray went 34-of-41 (82.9%!) for 405 yards, becoming the first non-Manning to throw for 400+ at Tennessee. Bray fired four touchdowns, zero interceptions. Da’Rick Rogers and Justin Hunter each caught 10+ passes for 100+ yards. The Vols went 10-of-13 on third down and punted once in a 45-23 win.

You don’t prove anything at Tennessee by beating Cincinnati (or BYU), but it felt like the prologue to the great story the Vols would write at Florida seven days later. And then Justin Hunter tore his ACL on the opening drive, and Tyler Bray broke his thumb against Georgia two games later. Injuries broke the Vols early, Kentucky buried them late, and Derek Dooley’s second season ended at 5-7. Before 2017, it might have been the least competitive season of my lifetime.

2014: It was supposed to be you.

Butch Jones didn’t follow the script perfectly leading into year two, thanks to a last-second loss to Vanderbilt that denied the Vols bowl eligibility in year one. But he did get the signature win that eluded Derek Dooley’s entire tenure, and was a fumble in overtime away from an even bigger win. More than anything, his recruiting classes – the ones coming in to play that August, and the ones who would arrive at February – made it feel like Tennessee’s return was inevitable.

And year two opened on schedule. The Vols faced pesky mid-majors from Utah State and Arkansas State to open, but handled both 38-7 and 34-19. At #4 Oklahoma in primetime, Justin Worley threw a pair of end zone interceptions in the second half, the latter returned 100 yards for a touchdown, making a 34-10 loss to the Sooners feel much more respectable. Then the Vols almost beat Georgia again, falling 35-32 thanks to a pair of second half fumbles, one in the Bulldog red zone and the other in Tennessee’s own end zone.

But all was well: the Vols were coming back to Knoxville, and a Gator team that lost its last seven games of 2013, needed three overtimes to beat Kentucky, and just fell by 21 to Alabama was teetering. Will Muschamp was on life support. The Vols would ascend. The moment was here.

For everything else that would happen during Butch Jones’ tenure – the multi-faceted heartbreak of 2015, 2016, and the total collapse in 2017 – this moment in 2014 remains one of the biggest missed opportunities. It’s a nice day outside, you don’t need me to rehash this game. The Vols lost 10-9. The neat and tidy narrative we’d been constructing for ourselves fell apart, almost entirely by our own hand.

Josh Dobbs saved the season a few weeks later. The Vols finished 6-6 and, thanks to a hungry fanbase eager for its first bowl game in four years, pole-vaulted their way to January 1 in the Taxslayer Bowl, decimated Iowa, and we set ourselves up for hope again. But all of that came after the story we thought we were getting – the story we thought we should get – fell apart.

2019: What’s the story now?

Hitting the Vegas number from four months away doesn’t feel like cause for celebration. If there’s magic to be had in year two, that would look more like 9-3. Keep in mind, the Vols haven’t had a 9-3 regular season since 2007, and haven’t finished an entire year with less than four losses since 2004. That’s fifteen years.

But if we can set magic to the side and just focus on progress, if the Vols do go 7-5 this fall? Jeremy Pruitt will be off to a better start than Derek Dooley and Butch Jones, despite digging out of a deeper hole post-2017. It’s not sexy, but it is noteworthy.

Be careful when falling in love with preseason projections from S&P+ and FPI. The Vols are 21st in the former and 15th in the latter. That’s great! But when both of those rating systems release their predicted win totals? S&P+ will probably have the Vols around 7-5; FPI might think about 8-4 but not by much. It’s not just where you’re ranked, it’s how many teams on your schedule are ranked ahead of you. In S&P+ that number is six, including four in the Top 10. In FPI it’s three, with Mississippi State, South Carolina, and Missouri right behind the Vols at 16, 19, and 20.

The closer you get to August, the more noise football will create. That part will always be true around here. But perhaps the relative quiet of this off-season and the length of our time in the wilderness will create a greater appreciation, even if just a little, of what just hitting the Vegas expectation might be worth this fall.

We added a few new things to our annual Gameday on Rocky Top magazine this year, which, by the way, is now safely in the hands of the printer as of Tuesday. We’ll have the pre-order information available for you next week sometime.

Anyway, one of the new things we added this time around is an analysis of the various schedules of the SEC teams. We only set aside one page for that, so it’s limited to which teams have (1) the toughest and weakest overall schedules, (2) the toughest and weakest cross-divisional schedules, (3) the toughest and weakest non-conference schedules, and (4) the toughest three-game stretch. The executive summary is this: South Carolina has the toughest non-conference and toughest overall schedules, Florida and Auburn tie for toughest cross-divisional schedules, and Texas A&M has the toughest three-game stretch, thanks in part to consecutive road games against Georgia and LSU to close out a long season. That page of the magazine includes tables ranking each team in each category with explanations, so if you want to see where Tennessee ranks, well, watch your newsstands. 🙂

The double-bye schedule

But while I was putting all of that together, several other interesting things didn’t make the cut for a single page. For instance, the schedules are different this year in that every team has two bye weeks instead of one. (Florida actually has three because they kick the party off on August 24, a week earlier than almost everyone else, with a special game against Miami.) Part of this is a function of a periodic calendar quirk that provides more Saturdays during the season, but there is also discussion of planning for it to happen every year in part because it would allow teams more flexibility to reschedule games impacted by inclement weather.

Regardless of whether the double-bye schedule becomes permanent, it’s happening this fall, and one side effect is the variance it introduces into the difficulty of teams’ respective schedules.

All of this is, of course, based on an assumption rooted in intuition that a bye week is worth something to the team that has it. There’s not a lot of data on this, but in 2016, Football Study Hall looked at 2015 data and concluded that a bye week “might have been worth a couple of points . . . .” So, take it for what it’s worth, but the data seems to support the intuition that a bye week is probably worth at least a little something.

The potential impact on Tennessee

What does that mean for Tennessee this year? First, on the positive side of the ledger, the Vols’ bye weeks this year come before the Georgia and Missouri games. Georgia also has a bye prior to the Tennessee-Georgia game, so that’s a wash. But while Tennessee has an extra week to prepare for Missouri, the Tigers will be coming off of consecutive games against Georgia and Florida, and that, my fellow Vols fans, could matter.

On the other hand, a vengeful-minded Kentucky team has a bye week before it plays Tennessee, while the Vols will be coming into that game at the tail end of this stretch of games: Georgia, Mississippi State, at Alabama, South Carolina, never-to-be-taken-lightly UAB, and at Kentucky. That’s a lot of games in a row for a 12-game schedule that includes two byes for everybody. That could matter as well.

It’s stuff like this that leads to perceived inconsistencies between power rankings and projections despite the fact that those are two different exercises done for two different purposes. I said in a couple of different places in the magazine that Tennessee could be worse than Missouri and beat them and better than Kentucky and lose to them. At this point, that’s actually what I’m thinking will happen.

How might the doubling of the byes impact Tennessee’s SEC schedule this year?

As already mentioned, Georgia has a bye before playing Tennessee, but so do the Vols. Consider that a wash. Kentucky has one as well, while the Vols are dealing with UAB at the end of a tough stretch. But in addition to those two, there is another: Mississippi State also has the prior week off while the Vols are dealing with Georgia, and they’ll be the second fresh opponent in two weeks for the Vols.

The byes also provide Tennessee some advantages, though. South Carolina hosts Florida the week before coming to Knoxville (and is at Georgia the week before that). Missouri is in basically the same position in that it hosts Florida the week before playing Tennessee in Knoxville and also travels to Georgia the week before that.

So, it could be worse. As a matter of fact, it is worse for Georgia. Byes for Tennessee and Florida prior to playing Georgia are negated by byes at the same time for the Bulldogs, but three additional dangerous teams also rest up right before entering the ring with the Bulldogs: Missouri, South Carolina, and Auburn all have an extra week to prepare for Georgia, while Georgia is having to contend with Florida, Tennessee, and Missouri, respectively, in the weeks prior to those games.

The bottom line of all of this is that we should all probably expect some quirkiness this fall with seemingly better teams sometimes losing to seemingly inferior teams at a more favorable point in their schedule. And with the double byes this fall, there are twice as many opportunities for such chaos-creating quirks.

Arguably one of the most upgraded positions since Head Coach Jeremy Pruitt took over, the Offensive Line has seen the following additions since the end of the 2017 season:

Alabama transfer C Brandon Kennedy

4-star OG/C Jerome Carvin

3-star three-to-play-three JUCO OT/OG Jahmir Johnson

3-star (with a Wisconsin offer) OG Ollie Lane

5-star OT Wanya Morris

5-star OT Darnell Wright

4-star OG/C Jackson Lampley

3-star (with FSU/Texas/Michigan offers) OG Chris Akporoghene

3-star OG Melvin McBride

Adding that two-year haul to emerging Redshirt Sophomore K’rojhn Calbert and experienced depth piece true Junior Riley Locklear (still with a redshirt available), the Vols have a very promising core at perhaps the most important position in football outside of Quarterback.  Were former freshman All-American Trey Smith to return from injury in either 2019 or 2020 the future at the position would look even brighter.

Regardless of the outstanding job done by Pruitt and his staff upgrading the talent and depth at the position, there is still plenty left to do.  In order to consistently compete at the highest levels and with the likes of Alabama and Georgia, Tennessee needs to continue to stack elite Offensive Line classes year after year, making the work done so far only a necessary foundation.  Like most positions in the 2020 cycle, Tennessee has positioned itself well, albeit early, to sign that kind of class, getting multiple elite-level prospects on campus multiple times and putting itself in position to battle to the end with the kinds of programs it wants to legitimately compete with on the field. 

OG/C Cooper Mays is a name that is obviously very familiar to Vol fans.  The local product is not just the son of former Vol linemn Kevin Mays but also the brother of former Tennessee commitment and current Georgia OL starter Cade Mays.  Cooper has made his own name though, becoming a very important target for Pruitt and Co. since they took over.  Fresh off winning OL MVP at the Charlotte Rivals camp, Mays took his official visit to Tennessee for the Orange & White game, one of dozens of visits to campus for him.  Although some thought that scheduling his OV was a sign of an imminent commitment to Tennessee, that didn’t happen.  But it was nice to get him back to campus yet again, as Tennessee would love for him to be the foundational piece for the 2020 OL class.  Worth noting is that Mays is very close friends with top Vol targets OL Tate Ratledge and DL Tyler Baron, so getting him in the boat would likely help with both of them as well.  Mays visited for this past weekend’s Georgia’s spring game, and the Dawgs should be considered a threat due to his brother being there even as how hard they are currently recruiting him remains TBD. 

OT Tate Ratledge – Arguably the top Offensive Tackle in the South and without a doubt one of the top OTs in the country, Ratledge is simply an elite player at one of the most important positions in football.  Despite having grown up a Tennessee fan in a family of hardcore Tennessee fans, the Vols were third on his list as recently as 12 months ago.  However, the departure of Alabama’s Offensive Line Coach Brent Key appears to have knocked the Tide virtually off of his list, and at the same time Coach Pruitt, OL Coach Will Friend, and OC Jim Chaney (who Ratledge was close with when he was at UGA) have led a surge for the Vols.  This is a two-team race between the Vols and the instate Dawgs, with uber recruiter Sam Pittman singlehandedly keeping UGA in it.  As noted above, Ratledge has become close with Cooper Mays as well as Vol QB commit Harrison Bailey, and that peer recruiting (by a potential linemate and QB, no less) along with the family ties could be hard for even Pittman to overcome.  However, UGA surely won’t go away in this one, and in fact Tate was at Georgia’s spring game last weekend and is no stranger to that campus either.  Ratledge is aiming for summer decision and will likely visit both campuses a least one more time, with one of the two schools coming away with a cornerstone prospect for its 2020 class

OT Javion Cohen – The Alabama prospect visited Tennessee in February and subsequently committed to South Carolina not long after.  However, he’s since decommitted and has the Vols in his top group along with instate powers Alabama and Auburn (both of whom have offered).  Cohen won the OL MP at the recent Rivals Camp in Atlanta, showing good power, quickness, and technique to go with a 280 pound frame that has plenty of room to add weight.  Whether or not he’s truly willing to leave the state remains to be seen, but if he is Tennessee has positioned itself to be a player

OT/OG Chris Morris – The Memphis native – one of good number of Bluff City prospects who the Vols would like to sign in 2020 – has been to Tennessee’s campus three times: the 2018 Orange & White Game, the 2018 Alabama game, and then again in late January for a Junior Day.  That said, he does seem to have a fondness for SEC West powers Alabama and Texas A&M, and Arkansas has done a nice job with him as well to this point.  However, Morris is simply an elite talent and has become one of Coach Pruitt’s personal projects.  Continuing to get him back on campus will be key, and should the Vols successfully do so they will likely find themselves near the top of his list until the end

OG Marcus Henderson – Another Memphis native who’s visited Knoxville three times since Pruitt took over, most recently in January.  He’s got offers from Alabama, Auburn, and Ohio State among others, but right now it looks like regional SEC programs like Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Arkansas are recruiting him harder.  Where he stands on Tennessee’s board is a bit unclear at the moment, with Mays and Ratledge clear top priorities and a few others likely higher than Henderson but tough battles.  How his senior season goes will likely clear that up for the Vols as well as other programs

OT Paris Johnson – The 5-star Ohio State commitment is anything but a firm commit to the Buckeyes, as the coaching change in Columbus really seemed to loosen the ties between the parties.  He’s been a traveling man all winter and spring, and among the many visits he’s taken have been once each to Knoxville both in January and March.  He’s fresh off a vis to UGA for their spring game this past weekend and Sam Pittman has the Dawgs in the race here as well.  Ultimately the Ohio native will be a tough pull for anyone, but he’s clearly got a fondness for the Vols and that likely will keep them in the race for as long as unless and until he decides to shut it down

OT Richard Leonard – Florida native who visited for the Orange & White Game and then immediately decommitted from Kentucky.  Leonard is a priority for instate schools FSU and Miami (whose spring games he attended in the last few weeks also).  He’s a good looking prospect for whom the Vols appear to be in the mix as his recruitment heads into the summer

OT Joshua Priebe – After receiving an offer from the Vols Priebe visited Tennessee in April and raved about his trip.  However, the Michigan native recently received an offer from Ohio State, meaning he’s now got opportunities at each of the Big 10 powers including Michigan and Michigan State.  Should he be willing to leave the region than the Vols will be a player.  His visits this summer/fall will tell the tale

OG Xavier Hill – After taking an unofficial visit to Knoxville in February, Hill has the Vols among his top group along with Alabama, Auburn, and the instate Mississippi schools. He’s a very talented prospect from Olive Branch, which is right on the Memphis border and a spot where kids have left the state in the recent past.  The Vols just offered 2022 teammate DL Walter Nolen, so perhaps the staff thinks they can make waves in that area

OG James Robinson – Robinson visited Knoxville with a couple of teammates in March and earned an offer, and the large (6-4, 315 pound) Guard also holds SEC offers from Missouri and Ole Miss along with Virginia Tech.  He’s likely a bit down the board at the moment but is one to watch during the season

Notably, three prospects who many thoughts would be at the top of Vols OL board when the cycle began are no longer there, but for different reasons.  Justin Rogers and Omari Thomas are both at the very top of Tennessee’s overall board, but both prefer to ultimately play, and therefore be recruited as, Defensive Lineman.  Knoxville’s Bryn Tucker, once a top target for the Vols, committed to reigning national champion Clemson this winter after the Vols staff cooled on him coming off a less-than-impressive junior season.  Time will tell if Pruitt and his staff made the right call essentially passing on a prospect in its own backyard that one of the top two programs in the country was happy to take very early in the process.  The hope here is that it works out well for both parties.

Some quick thoughts wrapping up the spring recruiting period for Tennessee, which culminated with the Orange & White Game last weekend

1. The large majority of prospects detailed in the weekend preview made it to campus as expected, with the notable exception of TE Arik Gilbert.  Gilbert appears to be, if not trending away from Tennessee per se, trending towards instate UGA at the moment
2. Interestingly, Tennessee chose to bring in five of the visitors officially, including one already committed prospect in DL Dominic Bailey from Maryland.  On its face this seems like a strange and possibly poor decision by Coach Jeremy Pruitt, as the official visit is the most meaningful and therefore precious card a school can play.  And to do so in mid-April certainly is “shooting your shot,” particularly with prospects from places like Maryland, Michigan, and Texas who by definition have to travel quite a bit and on their own dime in order to make it back to campus.  Even if all five of the official visitors had committed to Tennessee, there is still right months until the Early Signing Period, a lifetime in recruiting.  And in fact none of them actually did commit.  That’s not to say of course that the weekend was unsuccessful, as undoubtedly the visits helped the Vols a great deal in each of the respective recruitments.  And of course no one really knows if any of the prospects essentially said that without and OV they weren’t going to visit and they wanted to come this particular weekend. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the strategy pays off with these recruits, and we really won’t know until the faxes roll in in December and then February
3. The Vols did land one commitment over the weekend from electric Slot WR/CB Jimmy Calloway from South Georgia.  Potentially an early enrollee with offers from Oregon, Georgia Tech (and new Head Coach Brent Key formerly at Alabama) among others, Calloway fits the Pruitt mold of an explosive athlete who can play on either side of the ball and is comfortable with the ball in his hands.  Frankly, if Oregon wants a Slot WR prospect you can sign me up.  He showed out at a couple of spring 7-on-7 events (where he’s teammates with fellow Vol target EJ Williams, one of the aforementioned OV’s this past weekend) showing off great route running and dynamic playmaking ability.  Calloway looks like a case of getting in early on a kid by taking his commitment before other bigtime programs either have the chance to pull the trigger or even evaluate properly and depending on how willing he is to look around before December the Vols may very well find themselves fighting to hold on
4. Once again Pruitt and his staff did an excellent job all winter/spring of getting recruits to campus, many multiple times.  As noted above Tennessee ended with a bang in what was an incredibly successful weekend in terms of the volume of bigtime recruits on campus, especially considering the other schools who were also holding their spring games
5. As such, and combined with the work done last season getting these Class of 2020 kids to campus for camps and/or game in the Fall of 2018, Tennessee is set up nicely right now
6. To begin with, the Vols have six really, really good commitments, including a stud QB (and peer recruiter) in Harrison Bailey, a stud JUCO DE in Memphis-native and former Alabama signee Jordan Davis, and 4-star DL Bailey among them
7. At the same time, the Vols have positioned themselves at or near the top for a very impressive number of elite prospects.  Not just a handful, but legitimately upwards of thirty-plus 5 and 4-star prospects against whom Tennessee is deep in battles with the likes of Alabama, Clemson, Georgia, and Ohio State.  The Vols are simply fishing in much deeper waters than we’ve seen in quite awhile
8. Notably, and in contrast to last cycle, Tennessee has also put itself in strong position with a large number of instate prospects it (and other power programs) covets.  In particular, DB Keshawn Lawrence, OL Cooper Mays, DL Tyler Baron, DL Jay Hardy, DL Trevonn Rybka and RB/LB Tee Hodge are instate kids for whom one could convincingly say the Vols lead, and Tennessee is seemingly 2^nd behind Alabama in a two-team race for bigtime DE (and Bama legacy) DE Reggie Grimes from the midstate.  On the other hand, if Tennessee wants to be a real factor in Memphis this cycle, which is well known to be the case, the Vols are going to need to get the likes of OL/DL Omari Thomas, OL Chris Morris, and WR Darrin Turner on campus again relatively soon (while OL Marcus Henderson and ATH Jabari Small have been to Knoxville this spring)
9. All recruiting eyes will be in Athens, GA this weekend when UGA holds its own spring game with little to no competition for prospects.  Tennessee targets expected to attend include OL Tate Ratledge; OL Paris Johnson (OSU commitment); LB Mekhail Sherman (Rakim Jarrett’s teammate); RB Tank Bigsby; DL Zykevious Walker; OLB BJ Ojulari; TE Arik Gilbert; DB Joel Williams, and potentially OL Cooper Mays.  Ratledge in particular will be worth watching as the elite OT is a Tennessee-Georgia battle and was just in Knoxville for the Orange & White Game