Tennessee football: Strongest metro areas for Vols on 2019 roster

Tennessee football players are from all over the state and the country. Here are the strongest cities and towns for Jeremy Pruitt’s second Volunteers team.

As we’ve been showing you over the past week, Tennessee football has been drawing players from all over the country. Jeremy Pruitt’s second team will rely on a healthy mix of in-state and out of state talent.

The Vols have key players from Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and all the way out in California. They can reach all different regions of those states as well, just as they do across all the different regions of their own state.

Simply put, Tennessee football is going anywhere and everywhere for talent. That’s why they just graduated a Canadian linebacker and have a Canadian wide receiver entering his junior year with the program.

But where specifically are they plucking players? Yes, we know the states. The question is which parts of those states do the Vols have a pipeline to? Which cities, towns and even high schools are their top connections?

In this post, we’re going to break that down. Our analysis of UT by location will have a ranking of the top 10 strongest metro areas making up the Vols’ 2019 roster. While the strength of the states is relevant, this narrows down where specifically talent headed to Rocky Top is coming from.

The criteria we use includes weighing the number of people from the area, how much each person from the area has contributed to the team and is expected to this year, and how close they actually are to the metro area. For instance, we put heavier emphasis from people actually from inside the city of the metro area we’re talking about.

So let’s go ahead and take a look at where the Vols’ presence is felt across the country. As you’re about to see, some places are actually a bit random. These are the top 10 metro areas making up the key components Tennessee football’s roster for 2019.