Tennessee football recruiting: Ranking position groups of Vols 2019 class with grades

KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 29: A general view of Neyland Stadium during the South Carolina Gamecocks game against the Tennessee Volunteers on October 29, 2011 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 29: A general view of Neyland Stadium during the South Carolina Gamecocks game against the Tennessee Volunteers on October 29, 2011 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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3. Tight Ends

Recruiting grade: A-

Even with the departure of Eli Wolf, Tennessee football has a great situation at tight end. This year, Dominick Wood-Anderson, a four-star junior college transfer from last year, figures to have an explosive season in Jim Chaney’s offense. However, he’s a senior.

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But Austin Pope, Andrew Craig and LaTrell Bumphus will all be juniors, while James Brown and Jacob Warren will be sophomores. With those guys all in the rotation, Chaney and Jeremy Pruitt were bound to find a couple of guys that could be reliable starters.

Still, they didn’t settle. Pruitt wasn’t lying by hinting that he wanted a lot of tight ends on the roster, and he secured two more commitments at the position with this recruiting class. Three-star commitments Jackson Lowe and Sean Brown, both out of Georgia and listed at 6’5″ 230 pounds, have loaded up the group.

Given the state of the roster already, that gives this grade an A. We made it an A- only because of the fact that none of the guys on the roster have proven anything yet, and neither of the commitments were four-stars. The combination means that, despite the overwhelming likelihood of the contrary happening, there is still a chance that none of these guys work out.

Now, again, Wood-Anderson being a senior and Wolf leaving hurts the program to a certain degree since that leaves nobody proven for 2020. But this level of recruiting is too good to ignore, and most tight ends are three-stars anyway. The rarity of finding four-stars at that position are another reason this is able to be an A-.