Gameday on Rocky Top

 

Football is near.

And it won’t be long until we’re gearing ourselves up for the Vols to usher in the Jeremy Pruitt era.

We all know 2018 likely isn’t going to be a pretty sight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk ourselves into the Vols being much-improved under the former Alabama defensive coordinator. After all, Butch Jones is gone.

You just can’t help this time of year to be a tiny bit optimistic, even if logic (and recent history) suggests this is going to be yet another rebuilding campaign in Knoxville. Pruitt wants to win now, and he definitely isn’t used to losing after successful tenures in Tuscaloosa, Tallahassee and Athens, Georgia.

He’s outfitted UT’s roster with more size, and an infusion of collegiate talent. And he’s won some recruiting battles for guys who must be able to come right in and make an impact.

But what about the dudes already on the team? Who needs to make a major step forward in 2018 for the Vols to rise above the 4-8 doldrums of a historically horrible season where it looked like the team quit on former coach Butch Jones and his staff?

So far, our list has gone a little like this:

Offense: 5. Jauan Jennings 4. Ryan Johnson 3. Ty Chandler 2. Drew Richmond

Defense: 5. Jonathan Kongbo 4. Theo Jackson 3. Darrell Taylor 2. Baylen Buchanan

Who are the top two, then?

OFFENSE

No. 1 JARRETT GUARANTANO, RS SOPHOMORE QUARTERBACK

Say what you want to about graduate transfer Keller Chryst, and he may actually win the starting quarterback gig. But I’m not sure that’s the best thing for the Vols.

What would be an ideal situation is for the former dynamic, highly rated high school prospect from New Jersey to grow into his full potential and surge into stardom with three years left to play. Not only would that help the Vols ease into the Jeremy Pruitt era with a dependable signal-caller, it would allow guys like true freshman J.T. Shrout and recruit Brian Maurer to develop.

You have to think if Guarantano doesn’t beat out Chryst, his time at Tennessee would be nearing an end. It’s tough to speculate on something like that, sure, but I’m not sure if he can’t beat out a former backup at Stanford in year 3 of his time at UT if he’ll ever be the player the Vols thought they were getting when they recruited him.

Guarantano is not a run-first guy the way Joshua Dobbs was. He has a cannon for an arm and though he can make all the throws, he struggled with his anticipation and throwing guys open as a second-year freshman a year ago. His “internal clock” was broken, too. He never felt the pressure the way you want your quarterback to, and too many times, plays broke down because he didn’t get rid of the ball.

This spring, you would have loved to see him separate himself and earn a little bit of a head start with Chryst not on campus. He didn’t do that, and Guarantano really isn’t an ideal fit for new offensive coordinator Tyson Helton’s system. But that doesn’t mean he’ll fail. He’s got a lot of talent and can make all the plays. He can even run a little.

The Vols need for Guarantano to be a fiery leader, a gamer who grinds out plays and can make the spectacular ones occasionally. Helton has developed a lot of quarterbacks who’ve posted big-time collegiate numbers, and while nobody expects Guarantano to be a breakout star, the Vols need for him to be a steady force.

This Tennessee team can’t win football games with a “game manager.” I’m afraid that’s all Chryst would be with his accuracy issues and the lack of proof that he can ignite a downfield attack. Guarantano has that field-stretching arm. He has that ability. He has that swagger.

But can he put everything together?

Right now, he’s a leftover icon from an era gone wrong on Rocky Top. He was the Chosen One to play quarterback for the future of the Vols, but Butch Jones chose him. So, Guarantano doesn’t have the fan base’s heart, and he certainly doesn’t have the stats or the resme for us to believe in him.

He has to prove that he’s a good player and not just another recruiting miscue by a staff that failed to develop player after player after player.

DEFENSE

No. 1 KYLE PHILLIPS, SENIOR DEFENSIVE LINEMAN

For a while, I thought about putting Darrin Kirkland Jr. on this list. After all, he nearly left the Vols, and if he could return to his form as a true freshman when he was literally all over the field making plays, he would be a major boost to UT’s team.

Then I remembered: It doesn’t matter if Kirkland is a beast or not because the Vols’ linebacking corps should be one of the few positions on the team that has talent stockpiled. Between him, Daniel Bituli, Kongbo, Taylor, Will Ignont, Quart’e Sapp, JJ Peterson, Jordan Allen, Deandre Johnson, Austin Smith, Shanon Reid, Dillon Bates and others, surely the Vols can find a serviceable — if not dynamic — foursome. Yes, Kirkland is important, but I think the players I’ve put on the list are more important.

So, I’m going to go with a defensive lineman here.

Though Shy Tuttle probably should have been on here somewhere (I’m still not convinced Kongbo is a factor…) the top spot goes to Phillips. Remember when he destroyed the U.S. Army All-American Game, committed to Tennessee over LSU, and we all thought we were in for four years where he was going to terrorize SEC quarterbacks?

That seems like so long ago.

As a freshman, he started at defensive end, lacked explosion, moved inside to his chagrin but made some plays and then his season ended prematurely with injury. Injuries, inconsistency and mismanagement hindered him as a sophomore, and he was just so-so last year. Now, this offseason, he’s added a few pounds and is up to 273 pounds. He is expected to play inside some and can also play at that weight on the outside, too.

But he’s going to play a big role. Pruitt thought enough of him that Phillips represented Tennessee at SEC Media Days, not Tuttle. He’s a smart kid, a good kid and he hasn’t enjoyed the kind of career he expected. Now, this year, he hopes to build off a really good spring and finish his career in Knoxville with a flurry.

The Vols need dependable, rugged players on the defensive front who can stay in their slots, not get blown off the ball, and, most importantly, stop the run. That’s something this team hasn’t done in years. Now, if Tuttle can have a solid final year and a guy like Phillips can be a cog in the front, it can free up the ‘backers to make plays.

Is this group going to get a lot of sacks? That’s doubtful. But the Vols absolutely must get pressure on quarterbacks and help out what is expected to be a young and inexperienced secondary. When you look at that defensive line, there are some formerly heavily recruited players who’ve had mediocre careers who are really looking for something in their swan song.

Phillips is the perfect embodiment of that. He needs a big year if he’s going to get any NFL teams to give him a second look. The Vols need him to be a factor if they’re going to be any good at all this season.

So, here he sits, at the top of the list. It’s now or never for Phillips and a lot of his Jones-recruited teammates who suffered through the worst season in the history of the program a year ago.

Jesse Simonton’s piece at VolQuest this week produced a familiar answer to a fun late-July question. What’s Tennessee’s most important game?

It’s Florida. It’s almost always Florida.

There are quotes Tennessee fans will like in Jesse’s piece, offering some behind-the-scenes insight on how Jeremy Pruitt’s staff seems to understand the importance of Vols/Gators around here. And while Florida has been a consistent answer to that question since the divisional format began in 1992, why the game is so important has shifted over the years from Tennessee’s perspective.

It’s easier to think of seasons when Florida didn’t feel like the most important game in late-July. It’s also fun to look at the impact of the Florida game at the end of each year. Here are a few thoughts on the pre-and-post-season answers to Tennessee’s most important game since the Vols and Gators have been together in the SEC East:

1992-95: The Bama Streak

Even though the Vols and Crimson Tide aren’t in the same division, Alabama still felt like the most important game of the year until the Vols broke what became a 10-year streak. It took that, in 1995, to really turn the attention of Tennessee fans fully toward Gainesville, where by then Florida had picked up a three-year run of its own over Tennessee. Looking back, only the first of these years in 1992 wasn’t also defined by what the Vols did against Alabama in the end. Phillip Fulmer’s takeover made the Florida game the most meaningful at the end of the ’92 season, both the best memory from that year and the one that most assisted Fulmer in becoming Tennessee’s next head coach. 1993’s longest-lasting memory is the tie against the Crimson Tide, a near-miss at the goal line the longest from 1994, and that jubilant night in Birmingham still sings 23 years later from 1995.

1996-2001: Tennessee/Florida as a National Rivalry

With the exception of a rebuild in 2000, in every one of these years you knew there were national championship implications on the line when Tennessee and Florida met. And only once, when the Vols lost to Florida in 1997 but still made the SEC Championship Game, did the outcome fail to define Tennessee’s season. These six match-ups were #2 vs #4, #2 vs #4, #2 vs #6, #2 vs #4, #6 vs #11 in 2000, then #2 vs #5. That’s all you need to know.

2002-03: A Brief Intermission for Miami

Having drained The Swamp and watched Steve Spurrier leave for the NFL, the Vols were free to dream a little bigger heading into the 2002 season. The defending champs from Miami would visit Neyland Stadium that November, and with the Vols in the preseason top five it felt like the biggest bulls-eye coming in. Of course, the 2002 season didn’t go as planned, starting with a rainy day against Florida that ended up being the longest-lasting memory from that year. The following season Florida was back in its rightful place atop the most important list at the start of the year, but a surprise upset in the return match with the Hurricanes (and a three-way tie in the SEC East) made the win at Miami the season’s most memorable.

2004-09: Change on the Horizon

With Ron Zook at Florida, Georgia took advantage. Florida won the BCS title in 2006, but it was their only SEC East crown from 2001-07. Tennessee and Georgia split the other six, making the Dawgs the most important game on the front end in 2004 and 2005, plus Georgia’s preseason #1 turn in 2008. It lived up to that standard in 2004, as the Vols stunned #3 Georgia in Athens en route to the division crown. And while it may not have felt like the most important game coming in, wins over Georgia in 2007 and 2009 were the best memories from those years. During this span the Vols also had critical early-season non-conference games that mattered a great deal in perception: California in 2006, and UCLA for Lane Kiffin in 2009.

2010-17: You’re not really back until you…

Beat Florida. During the Derek Dooley and Butch Jones tenures, only once was Florida not the most important game of the year coming in: 2013, in Jones’ first year, with Vanderbilt on the rise under James Franklin and the Vols having lost to Kentucky in 2011 and Vanderbilt in 2012. After the Dooley era, beating the Gators felt like too big of an ask for Jones in year one, the most sober we’ve been as a fan base (and maybe even more sober than we are right now). I’d listen to an argument for 2015, that more people were invested in that Oklahoma game in Neyland than Florida in The Swamp coming into the year, but I’m not sure I’m buying it. For Dooley, only in the end was the Florida game truly the most important: his first team turned it over to Tyler Bray at South Carolina and seemed to turn a corner; his second team threw all that right in the fire at Kentucky, which should never ever be your most impactful game of the year. Butch Jones got more positive out of beating South Carolina in 2013 than losing to Vanderbilt, but Florida has been the most painful memory in each of the last four years. Three losses that absolutely should not have been, and one spectacular win that couldn’t stand the test of time by season’s end.

By my count, Florida has felt like the most important game coming into the year in 15 of the last 22 seasons since the Vols broke the Bama streak. And it has been the game with the longest-lasting impact on Tennessee’s year 11 times in those 22 years, including five of the last six. It’s a far cry from what we saw in the late 90’s, but the stakes still feel quite real. They’re all important for Jeremy Pruitt, including West Virginia. But the answer is almost always Florida. It’s Pruitt’s job to raise those stakes even higher.

 

Football is near.

And it won’t be long until we’re gearing ourselves up for the Vols to usher in the Jeremy Pruitt era.

We all know 2018 likely isn’t going to be a pretty sight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk ourselves into the Vols being much-improved under the former Alabama defensive coordinator. After all, Butch Jones is gone.

You just can’t help this time of year to be a tiny bit optimistic, even if logic (and recent history) suggests this is going to be yet another rebuilding campaign in Knoxville. Pruitt wants to win now, and he definitely isn’t used to losing after successful tenures in Tuscaloosa, Tallahassee and Athens, Georgia.

He’s outfitted UT’s roster with more size, and an infusion of collegiate talent. And he’s won some recruiting battles for guys who must be able to come right in and make an impact.

But what about the dudes already on the team? Who needs to make a major step forward in 2018 for the Vols to rise above the 4-8 doldrums of a historically horrible season where it looked like the team quit on former coach Butch Jones and his staff?

OFFENSE

Drew Richmond, Junior Offensive Tackle

Tonight, we take a look at a couple of developmental disasters who have ability, but do they have the make-up, the responsiveness and the time to turn things around?

Perhaps the most important non-quarterback on Tennessee’s football team this fall is going to be former high 4-star offensive tackle Drew Richmond, a national signing day victory over Ole Miss when he flipped from the Rebels and gave coach Butch Jones one of his biggest pledges, both from a talent perspective and from a perception perspective.

After redshirting his freshman season, though and starting at the all-important left tackle spot in 2016, last season was a wash. Rather than improve on an up-and-down year thrust into the starting lineup, Richmond instead missed five games and played terribly at times when he was on the field. His performance was a microcosm of the team itself as he took a gigantic step backward and was even labeled a bust by some.

How bad was he last year? According to Pro Football Focus, he graded out third-worst on UT’s offense, per an article from GoVols247’s Patrick Brown. Only Devante Brooks and Marcus Tatum were worse. He can’t do anything about that now, and with a fairly clear path to start yet again, Richmond told Brown this spring that he has to look ahead.

“That’s just in the past,” Richmond said. “I can’t worry about that. I’m just focused right now on the growth of myself and the team. I’m just focused on this year. That’s all I can be worried about.”

There is no fairy dust for new coach Jeremy Pruitt’s staff, but as good as Walt Wells was on the recruiting trail for UT a year ago, his players didn’t respond on the offensive line. This spring showed some fair glimmers for the O-line under new coach Will Friend, and Richmond needs to build off some good performances and let it translate onto the field when it counts.

The Vols need for him to, too.

Let’s just say for instance that Trey Smith knocks off the rust and is the first-team All-SEC performer he was picked to be this preseason. Then, if Richmond responds and realizes three-quarters of his potential and turns into, say, a Dallas Thomas-type player this year, that gives UT two good-to-great linemen. With the prospects they have on the interior of the line, the Vols can find a serviceable duo there, which only leaves the right tackle spot as a place where guys like Jahmir Johnson, Tatum, Chance Hall and others can battle it out.

It’s not an ideal scenario, but it would be hard for UT to be worse along the front than it was a season ago. Under a new regime, it’s a fresh start for Richmond. With Smith, Ryan Johnson, Riley Locklear and Jerome Carvin in heated battles at guard and Alabama transfer Brandon Kennedy expected to lock down the center spot, that isn’t a bad start for UT up front.

Richmond turning into a solid player would be absolutely massive for the Vols. Is it possible he simply isn’t that good? Of course it is. He was embarrassingly awful at times last year, after all. But I refuse to give up on him just yet.

DEFENSE

Baylen Buchanan, Junior Cornerback

I basically could just take everything I wrote for Richmond, copy it, and paste it here. While they play completely different positions, the similarities between Richmond’s and Baylen Buchanan’s development [or lack thereof] are striking. It underscores just how awful the Jones coaching staff was when it came to developing players.

Again, Buchanan was a bit of a late bloomer in the recruiting process, but teams like Oklahoma, Ohio State and Louisville wanted the son of “Big Play” Ray Buchanan late in the process, and he chose to commit to the Vols. After he played in five games as a true freshman and wound up with 20 tackles, last year was horrific.

Was Buchanan a star as a freshman? Absolutely not. He looked bad at times but showed some promise. Last year, he couldn’t find the field, playing in just six games and registering four tackles. This is a kid who had eight tackles against Alabama in his first year in the program. With his bloodlines and that kind of career start, for him to be a nonfactor last year was puzzling, at best.

This past spring, he was arguably the Vols’ top cornerback. That’s promising, but it’s also scary. UT must have better play out of the position moving forward, and it’s obvious this coaching staff believed this spring that Buchanan was one of the better options. Will that continue into the fall? That’s the million-dollar question.

Here’s the deal: The Vols moved freshman Alontae Taylor to the position late in the spring, and he showed immense promise. They believe he could be a starter there immediately, and there’s a reason teams like Alabama and Georgia wanted him on defense. Also, the Vols received a major late recruiting coup when Bryce Thompson flipped from South Carolina, and he’ll start his career at cornerback, too. That’s another dynamic athlete to go with Taylor. Freshman Brandon Davis is a promising athlete, but he’s raw. Then there are guys like Cheyenne Labruzza, Maleik Gray and Shawn Shamburger who are “tweeners” and will fit somewhere in the rotation, but will it be at cornerback? Marquill Osborne is going to be a factor at the position, too.

But Buchanan really did look good at times this spring; that’s not just lip service. He was healthier, in much better shape and didn’t look lost a lot of times. Is he a No. 1 cornerback for an SEC football team? No, he shouldn’t be. But he also shouldn’t just be a special teamer who can’t work his way onto the field. Whether that was because of the incompetence of Jones’ staff or because Buchanan wasn’t doing the right things on and off the field, I don’t know.

But, again, I stress: This is a fresh start.

Buchanan has the opportunity to step right into the fray this fall. If he is solid, it’s going to make the team better. It’s also going to elevate the competition and make guys like Taylor and Thompson better.

The Vols need him to really battle for that starting gig.