Tennessee football: 5 most encouraging signs from Vols 2019 spring practice

2. Standout defensive linemen identified

All the positions had concern entering spring ball. After all, you don’t go 5-7 with six losses by 25 points or more and celebrate a lot of returning talent, even if the focus is just on that talent developing more.

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But the one area where Tennessee football did lose talent was the one area where they were elite last year, and that was the defensive line. Kyle Phillips, Alexis Johnson and Shy Tuttle are all gone, and Emmit Gooden is the only returner with real in-game experience.

The depth was horrible last year, though, even with Gooden, and that made for some concerns. It’s why Jeremy Pruitt secured three defensive linemen as commitments, two of whom are four-stars and two of whom are junior college transfers. He wanted immediate help.

That help was reason for lightening up the concern a bit, but the Vols still needed to find some guys who could step up before those newcomers arrived. They appear to have found them. Gooden remained solid.

Then Matthew Butler burst onto the scene as a defensive lineman. He was a breakout star of the defense. That allows the Vols to have two guys they can rely on already heading into the summer, and with three newcomers, they should be able to find a third guy to have a good rotation.

Now, it is true that development was slow along the defensive line, and Jeremy Pruitt was making it pretty clear that they were having trouble replacing the talent without explicitly saying it. But finding key guys who can step in already is a big deal and a huge positive.