Tennessee football: Daniel Bituli, Trey Smith becoming Vols breakout players
Tennessee football sophomore linebacker Daniel Bituli and freshman guard Trey Smith are becoming breakout players for the Volunteers.
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It’s a quiet untold story amidst all the controversy surrounding the Tennessee football program for the past two weeks. But a pair of first-year starters are quietly becoming breakout stars for the Vols.
And both had major expectations when they were recruited. Daniel Bituli and Trey Smith were both four-star in-state recruits on Rivals.
Bituli arrived as a member of the 2016 Tennessee football recruiting class while Smith was the prized bull of the Vols’ 2017 class. Now, both are standing out as some of the top performers early in the year for the Vols.
Starting with Bituli, he is apparently one of the most efficient tacklers in the SEC so far this year. College Football Film Room has been tracking that stat, and Bituli came in second in the conference behind Georgia safety J.R. Reed for lowest missed tackle rate.
SEC's most efficient tacklers are paced by a couple of Georgia Bulldogs pic.twitter.com/Do5Czr57V3
— CFB Film Room (@CFBFilmRoom) September 28, 2017
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What makes this so impressive is that Bituli has been in on a lot of plays. As an outside linebacker starting since game one and facing teams like the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets that run a lot of plays, he’s had plenty of chances to miss tackles.
But he hasn’t. And he has 38 tackles already on the year. Of those, 18 are solo, and one and a half are tackles for a loss. He also has a forced fumble.
Once recruited as an elite edge rusher, Bituli has carved out a name in his own right at linebacker so far when he initially only started to fill in for Austin Smith.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, a freshman that entered campus with a ton of hype has been living up to it early on.
Tennessee football offensive guard Trey Smith began to generate hype in the spring and, in unprecedented fashion when it comes to Butch Jones’s system, earned his way into the starting lineup on the depth chart.
With the exception of an untimely penalty against the Florida Gators and just a couple of mistakes, he’s been nearly flawless at the position.
Smith’s play has earned him the respect of Pro Football Focus as one of the top freshmen of the season so far. In fact, PFF College Football ranked him No. 3 on their list of top freshmen so far this year in a tweet sent out Thursday.
Before we kick off Week 5 tonight, here's a look at our top freshman through the first four weeks of the season. pic.twitter.com/BM2YoOjNHQ
— PFF College (@PFF_College) September 28, 2017
With all the controversy and explosive news surrounding the Tennessee football program currently, Smith and Bituli bring some positive energy. They are two in-state recruits that Vols fans did expect to emerge sooner rather than later.
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And at this point, both guys are playing like veterans on their side of the ball. This is at least one thing Jones can be proud of. If he can learn to make more efficient coaching calls on the year, he might be okay. Bituli and Smith at least will help keep the future bright for this team.