Tennessee football: 5 most important walk-ons for Vols 2018 season

Tennessee football could turn to walk-ons for help in Jeremy Pruitt’s first year. These are the top five Volunteers not on scholarship.

Tennessee football doesn’t have to go the Nebraska Cornhuskers route to win big. It may have been more crucial back in the day, but with Knoxville right in the center of the massively growing new south, which includes Nashville, Atlanta and Charlotte, it’s becoming much easier to recruit.

However, it doesn’t matter how great of a program you have. If you can find guys nobody else wanted and do it better than everybody else, you have an advantage. And this is why you should pay attention to walk-ons every year.

This year, the Vols have numerous walk-ons, and with new systems on both sides of the ball, many of them could play. Don’t be surprised if that actually happens. Heck, Tennessee football has to replace one of the greatest punters in school history in Trevor Daniel, and he actually was a walk-on himself.

Who could do that for Pruitt in 2018? In this post, we’re going to break that down. After all, if junior college transfers, graduate transfers and everybody else gets recognized for their importance, why not walk-ons?

Some guys who fit this mold already have experience playing because of the rash of injuries that hit the program the last two years. Others could be getting overlooked. And some could actually already be starters in the program.

To be clear, when we do this ranking, we’re not going to bring up backup kickers and punters in Laszlo Toser and Joe Doyle. That’s because all signs point to Brent Cimaglia and Paxton Brooks being the starters there, and backup kickers almost never matter.

However, there are other players who may come in and prove Pruitt and his staff wrong. Let’s take a look at who they may be. These are the top five walk-ons who could have an impact on Tennessee football for the 2018 season.