Tennessee football: 5 reasons Vols were shut out of 2019 NFL Draft

1. The Vols didn’t win enough. 

This one’s pretty simple. It always has been. NFL Drafts are often a reflection of wins and losses for a team, and Tennessee football took a step back as the 2014 and 2015 recruiting classes became juniors and seniors in the program.

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In fact, it was a major step back. In 2017, when the 2014 class members were either seniors or redshirt juniors and the 2015 class members were either juniors or redshirt sophomores, the Vols had their worst season ever. They went 4-8 and 0-8 in the SEC.

The next year, with some holdovers from 2014 and the 2015 class being made up of seniors or redshirt juniors, they suffered through a 5-7 season. Sure, it was Jeremy Pruitt’s first year, but it’s already an uphill climb for the NFL if you can’t win.

Factor in the injury history, lack of player development and inability to stand out due to system changes, and it’s pretty easy to see why scouts were not high on too many Vols. They just had proven very little.

Those other things, it’s fair to say, were major contributors for why the Vols didn’t win. They are also why the program changed coaches, but at the end of the day, the result is still the same. Lack of wins meant lack of NFL Draft picks.

Tennessee football is looking to make a big splash with Jeremy Pruitt at the helm going forward. They could actually really stand out in next year’s draft. But they need to start winning more if they want to get a look from NFL scouts. It’s no secret that the 1990s is their best decade for the NFL Draft and also the decade in which they reached the most wins.