Tennessee football 2019 NFL Draft projections: Where will former Vols go?
Final take
Tennessee football will have its worst NFL Draft since 2016, when nobody was drafted. That also held true in 2015, but it was a rare two-year occurrence. The Vols almost always do better in the draft than they’ll do this year.
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Even last year, when they also only had one player taken coming off the worst season in school history with a 4-8 record and a last-place finish in the SEC at 0-8, they still managed to put Rashaan Gaulden in the draft. And he was the third pick.
None of the Vols this year are going to be that high. Kyle Phillips is the only player who is going to get drafted, and he’ll go on the third day. It’s a positive outlook just for us to say that he’s going to be a sixth-round draft pick.
Now, the good news is Rocky Top has had a history this decade of unsigned players breaking out. Arian Foster broke out in 2010, Ramon Foster became a staple with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Justin Coleman is now the highest paid nickel in the NFL.
Guys like Alexis Johnson, Jonathan Kongbo and Shy Tuttle, all of whom are great performers, could see that happen to themselves this year. So don’t count everybody’s NFL career out just yet. Just count out their draft prospects outside of Phillips.
dark. Next. Vols top 30 players since 1998
In the future, Tennessee football figures to put better talent out there as Jeremy Pruitt gets his guys into the program. But for now, they are going to have to labor in the situation they’re in at this moment, which is just hoping that some undrafted free agents manage to burst onto the scene as stars.