Tennessee picked up a big commitment on Tuesday from borderline 5-star OL Wanya Morris from Grayson, HS in Georgia. Morris picked the Vols over fellow finalist Auburn after a back and forth recruitment. He’s a true offensive tackle and an elite prospect with the kind of size and mobility that the Vols simply do not have at the position outside of Trey Smith, and is simply put a huge win on the recruiting trail for Coach Jeremy Pruitt and Tennessee.
Morris is a foundational piece for the class of 2019, and with 4-star Jackson Lampley already in the fold, the Vols are off to a great start when it comes to having a high-level OL class, which it absolutely has to have. To that end, Tennessee is very much in the thick of it with 5-star Darnell Wright as well as other highly regarded OL like Bryce Benhart and Anthony Bradford – both of whom have taken spring official visits to Knoxville after previously seeing the campus unofficially, showing how much interest they have in the Vols – among others.
Despite the 2018 offensive line being arguably the biggest question mark on the team, it is notable that looking ahead to the 2019 season there are no seniors at the position. Therefore, even though the talent that exists on the team is not the kind of top-tier talent that Tennessee needs to win at a high level, there is certainly room and time for OL coach Will Friend to develop it. Obviously, Trey Smith is a tremendous building block that Pruitt and Friend inherited and upon which to build, and K’rojhn Calbert also appears to have the kind of size and natural ability to be a bigtime SEC talent. But in a short period of time, Pruitt and Friend added Jerome Carvin (for whom they beat out Alabama, UF, Auburn among others) and Jahmir Johnson (a JUCO All-American with 3 years to play) to the class of 2018. And now, with Lampley and Morris – and surely more to come – one can see a path to the kind of talented and physically imposing offensive line that Tennessee simply hasn’t had since arguably the Phillip Fulmer era ended.