Tennessee Football: Should Vols Recent Recruiting Bring Concern?
By Austin Clay
Butch Jones has had great success the past month with recruiting for Tennessee football. Are all the three-stars good or bad news for the Volunteers?
Butch Jones hasn’t yet gotten Tennessee where it should be and that makes some fans feel uncomfortable about him. However, his recruiting is what has kept the other fans optimistic.
He has solidly brought in good, elite talent. Recently Jones hauled in the #14 class for 2016 with players such as Tyler Byrd, Jonathan Kongbo and Nigel Warrior.
The 2017 class is currently ranked #11 with 23 commitments. That number isn’t really impressive given the Vols already have 23 commits compared to others with 17 or 18 commits. With this many commits the Vols should be higher in the ranking but this class is sitting with 20 3*s.
Should that bring concern that the top talent doesn’t want to come to Tennessee? No.
Butch Jones inherited a mess. His second recruiting class consisted of 32 (!!) commitments. That is a lot. The next class, 2015, had 30 commitments. Jones had to fill the talent void and add some depth so he did with these two classes.
These guys are now starters. They all also have two years of eligibility left.
Butch Jones is a great recruiter, don’t get me wrong. However, he had the best recruiting tool to use on those young men. Playing time.
The 2014 and 2015 classes both had chance to come in and get playing time immediately at a program like Tennessee.
Times are a little different now for Tennessee.
The two huge recruiting classes have made it a little bit rough to get the talent they use to. They still can land the best players though.
This isn’t an excuse for why Butch is bringing in all the 3*s. Obviously he sees something in them that he likes and we have to trust that.
The selling point of playing time just isn’t there right now for the program.
Don’t worry about it Vol fans. The talent-enriched team will make recruits want to come to Tennessee. There’s no need to press the panic button.