Tennessee football: 5 3-stars who could shine for Vols in 2019

Tennessee football’s 2019 recruiting class didn’t have many three-stars. But some of them could contribute this year for the Volunteers.

We know about the highly rated recruits who could make an early impact. But every year, Tennessee football has a group of three-stars who will shock the world by becoming major contributors to the program. Whether or not they do it in their first year or do it as a senior is usually irrelevant.

However, in the past, the Vols have surprisingly seen a high level of productivity from some three-star recruits immediately when they stepped on campus. In fact, there are some years in which they are the quickest to pick things up.

Just go back to 2018. Jahmir Johnson and Trevon Flowers both became regular contributors for Tennessee football. Even in Butch Jones’s final year, Shawn Shamburger and Will McBride both started multiple games. Baylen Buchanan was an immediate starter as a three-star freshman upon Cameron Sutton’s injury in 2016.

Simply put, Tennessee football often has to turn to freshmen, and those freshmen are often players who weren’t highly touted. But with so much returning talent this year and a recruiting class that was light on three-stars, 2019 looks to be different.

The Vols don’t have too many three-star or worse recruits to begin with, which could be considered good news since it means they had a higher percentage of four-stars and five-stars in this class. But it’s likely they’ll need some help from newcomers, and the star ratings won’t matter once those newcomers begin fall practice.

That means that plenty of them could be three-stars who contribute this year. In this post, we’re going to rank the five three-star recruits most likely to be able to contribute for the Vols in 2019. This isn’t a sure bet that any of these guys will actually contribute, but the combination of needs at the position and their experience gives them a chance.

It’s likely that somebody on this list does end up making a splash, and that somebody could turn into a couple of people. We just have to see how injuries shake out and who is the most ready to take the field when the season begins. A feel for the game can give newcomers a huge boost.

So who could be those surprises among the newcomers? Which players will shock their way into a major role or are at least more likely to do so than others? Find out here with our ranking of the five three-star prospects in the 2019 Tennessee football recruiting class most likely to contribute to this year’s team.