Tennessee football: Vols hyping up in-state freshmen for 2017

Tennessee football offensive lineman Trey Smith and running back Ty Chandler have generated tons of offseason hype for the Volunteers.

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I’ll admit that I questioned this early in the offseason. Butch Jones was feeling a bit of pressure entering his fifth season as Tennessee football head coach.

The Vols had suffered a bit of a disappointing recruiting class.

And they were dealing with the fallout of a major in-state disappointment in Jalen Hurd, who left the program midway through 2016.

So it all made sense that, to sell the state of the program, Jones and the coaches would push elite in-state freshmen. They could sell early playing time to future recruits and give fans some excitement.

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This started with Trey Smith. Smith was a four-star in-state offensive lineman who enrolled early. And the coaches immediately promoted him.

That all seemed odd for Jones, a guy whose system always seems to take a while for linemen to pick up. And considering how deep the Vols are at offensive line this year, it didn’t make sense to push Smith so much.

But recent developments suggest Smith is worthy of the hype he’s getting.

First, the Vols moved him to guard. That position is so deep that if they were just looking for an excuse to play him, they’d put him at tackle. After all, tackle is a lot thinner right now.

But they are still hyping him up and have him at guard. That means they have lots of faith in his talent.

Other sources are suggesting that Smith is the real deal in addition to the coaches. The most recent one came from former Tennessee football assistant coach Doug Mathews. Mathews, who has no stake in just promoting the program anymore, recently touted Smith as the leader of the unit, according to Will Boling of Rocky Top Insider.

That’s a bold statement for a unit we considered to be the deepest on the Tennessee football team in our post ranking all the Vols’ position groups this year.

It almost suggested reason to be concerned about the group. But we know what type of player and leader Jashon Robertson is. And Coleman Thomas and Brett Kendrick are marks of reliability, while Jack Jones and Drew Richmond have a ton of potential as well.

So this all suggests Smith truly is that great, and he’s more than just a hype train. And with new line coach Walt Wells and new offensive coordinator Larry Scott looking to run a 10-man rotation this year, you can definitely expect to see lots of action from Smith this year.

Along with Smith, though, comes Ty Chandler. We already spoke of Jalen Hurd. His departure opens up the door for John Kelly to be the clear-cut starter at running back this year with Alvin Kamara now in the NFL.

But Chandler is also joining the unit along with two other freshmen. Jones, Scott and Robert Gillespie have emphasized that the freshmen would play at the position position. When you already have Carlin Fils-Aime in there as a sophomore to back up Kelly, that clearly means they’re promoting Chandler.

Sure, there are other freshman backs. But Chandler, the other four-star in-state guy, can be a flashy impact player immediately.

And Mathews promoted him as well.

So there’s a chance a four-star in-state freshman offensive lineman could be paving the way for a four-star in-state freshman running back to have big runs. That would be perfect for Jones and the coaches.

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It allows them to sell the program to other recruits and build more in-state momentum. And if the hype is true, it’ll help them win more games this year as well.