Tennessee football: Vols top 30 players since 1998 national championship

If you want to know how Tennessee football produced two 1,000-yard rushers in 2004, just look at the fact that Arron Sears and Michael Muñoz started on the same team. Sears was an eventual All-American, and Muñoz was an All-American that year.

The son of legendary NFL offensive lineman Anthony Muñoz, Michael Muñoz was living up to his dad’s name on Rocky Top. He became a full-time starter his freshman year in 2000, immediately helping Phillip Fulmer reload a young team.

In 2001, Muñoz suffered a devastating injury that ended his entire season. He returned in 2002, but was a bit inconsistent, as he tried to recover from the injury and as the rest of the team got hit by the injury bug.

However, Muñoz’s leadership capabilities were finally put on display in 2003. Fully healthy, he became a staple of the offensive line and was named team captain as a redshirt junior, something rare at the time for the Vols.

Over the next two years, he would make All-SEC both seasons and help the Vols score back-to-back 10-win years, while also winning back-to-back SEC East Championships. Starting 46 games in his career, Muñoz played his role in helping Casey Clausen lead a team with no receivers in 2003 to 10 wins. Then, he helped bring along the freshmen we keep mentioning in 2004.

Recurring injuries kept him from being taken in the 2005 NFL Draft, so he decided to give up his football career. However, while playing in college, he was a staple for the Vols and a consistently reliable player. A great leader and elite blocker, Muñoz is the type of guy who would have fared well on any Tennessee football team in any era.