Tennessee football: Vols 10 biggest concerns for 2018 season

7. Too many questions on the offensive line

If you just look at the recruiting rankings, Tennessee football should be set on the offensive line. The Vols have two top-rated recruits in Drew Richmond and Trey Smith. They also have a bunch of four-stars in guys like Riley Locklear, Ryan Johnson, Jerome Carvin and graduate transfer Brandon Kennedy from the Alabama Crimson Tide.

On top of that, guys are healthy again. Chance Hall is one of the most proven linemen, and him being back is huge for the Vols. Marcus Tatum and Nathan Niehaus are other bodies. Simply put, when it comes to players, the Vols have some on paper. But it’s just on paper.

None of these guys are proven performers entering the year without questions. The most consistent performers are Hall and Smith, and both guys have had to fight off some sort of injury in the offseason. Hall’s battled multiple ones for two years.

Richmond, meanwhile, has struggled with consistently. Tatum, Johnson, Locklear and Niehaus only played out of desperation from the coaches last year and proved very little. Kennedy was a backup in Tuscaloosa. Carvin is a freshman.

So while there’s talent, the Vols have too many questions up front. Offensive line is a position in which you need everybody working in unison. How can you expect UT to have that out of the gate with all of these issues? And they need depth, which they may not have found yet.

Will Friend, Tyson Helton and Jeremy Pruitt have a lot of work to do here. They need to find a center, first off, to be able to run the offense. Then they need to find their rotation. This is a difficult process, and it’s hard to know how things will shake out.