Tennessee football: No basis for worrying about Vols' 2019 recruiting class

Tennessee football’s 2019 recruiting class is currently outside of the Top 25. But there’s no basis for worrying about where the Volunteers currently stand.

It’s early May. Tennessee football is coming off its worst season in school history and a coaching change fiasco. But with five commitments and a currently Top 30 class on Rivals, some analysts are already jumping to conclusions.

Ryan Green of Gridiron Now released this report on Wednesday noting that the Vols are struggling on the recruiting trail right now. His case? Tennessee football has only five commitments, three in the top 350, while Alabama has 12 top 350 commitments and Georgia has eight. He also cited the Vols losing homegrown talent, noting that four of the top 15 in-state players have committed elsewhere.

To be fair to Green, he’s not the only person worried. John Adams of Knoxville News Sentinel wrote earlier in the week that the Vols are falling behind other SEC rivals in recruiting so far this year. To be fair, Adams did note that Jeremy Pruitt’s recruiting history indicates a stronger finish. But his main point was that SEC rivals may have better recruiting years in 2019 than in the past.

So for many people on Knoxville, it’s time to panic. How could they be No. 29 in recruiting right now and No. 10 in the SEC with only five commitments? To quote the great Aaron Rodgers, R-E-L-A-X!

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Georgia is coming off the greatest recruiting class in school history. Want to know how many of those commitments had made their choice by this time last year? Two. Alabama’s No. 1 recruiting class in 2016 had only four players who had committed by this date the year before.

Heck, Tennessee’s last Top 10 class, in 2015, only had seven players committed by this time the year before. So this stuff happens.

There is absolutely no reason to worry about where the Vols are right now. And to be fair, Pruitt is going to have much more of an uphill battle in recruiting than other SEC coaches have had at their schools. You can’t compare what he’s got to deal with to what Nick Saban had in 2007 or Kirby Smart had in 2016.

Look, coming off a last-place SEC finish and the worst season in school history, Tennessee football is not going to recruit anywhere close to Alabama or Georgia, the two teams who played for a national championship. If the current program prestige and proven coaches weren’t enough, those schools are loaded with more in-state talent.

The Florida Gators and Texas A&M Aggies, meanwhile, are ahead of them as well, but they have more in-state talent and proven head coaches in Dan Mullen and Jimbo Fisher. We know what Ed Orgeron can do with the LSU Tigers as well.

Naturally, these schools are all going to have advantages over Pruitt this year. But to panic so early makes no sense. So the Vols only have five commitments right now.

There’s no reason to believe that Pruitt can’t have his class leapfrog some of the other schools, such as the Ole Miss Rebels, South Carolina Gamecocks, Mississippi State Bulldogs and even the Auburn Tigers. This early, anything could happen.

However, it’s going to take some time. Because of the nature of the programs, Pruitt will need a little more help from on-field results to sell recruiting than these other coaches do. He knows that, and it’s why he’s focusing on graduate transfers to try to win this season.

The Vols just got a four-star commitment last week in Wanya Morris. They have a plethora of prospects still out there. And while four of the top 15 prospects may be committed to other schools from within the state, one is committed to the Vols in Jackson Lampley. That also means that there are 10 others Pruitt could potentially get.

Next: Top 10 in-state Vols for 2018

Simply put, Tennessee football is not going to have the advantages other schools and coaches in the SEC had their first years. Their head coach isn’t a proven winner as a head coach anywhere. They are not coming off even a decent season. And while the talent in the area is more than enough to win a national title with, it’s not as easily built in as Georgia, Florida, Alabama, LSU and Texas A&M. So recruiting will be a bit trickier for Pruitt. But that doesn’t mean it’s panic time when it’s only May 10.

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Tennessee football: No basis for worrying about Vols’ 2019 recruiting class

By Caleb Calhoun | May 10, 2018

Tennessee football’s 2019 recruiting class is currently outside of the Top 25. But there’s no basis for worrying about where the Volunteers currently stand.