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Tennessee football 2019 preview by position: Vols secondary

By Caleb Calhoun

ATHENS, GA - SEPTEMBER 29: Head Coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers discusses a play with Bryce Thompson #20 during the game against the Georgia Bulldogs on September 29, 2018 in Athens, Georgia. (Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images)
ATHENS, GA - SEPTEMBER 29: Head Coach Jeremy Pruitt of the Tennessee Volunteers discusses a play with Bryce Thompson #20 during the game against the Georgia Bulldogs on September 29, 2018 in Athens, Georgia. (Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images) /
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Tennessee football’s secondary could be a possible strength for the Volunteers. Here is where they stand at defensive back, including cornerback and safety.

If there is one thing Jeremy Pruitt knows, it’s the secondary. After all, he played it and coached it before becoming a defensive coordinator or head coach. So Tennessee football should be in great shape there with him  running the ship.

Well, now the Vols have added Derrick Ansley to be defensive coordinator, a guy who coached secondary under Pruitt and oversaw a highly productive secondary with the Kentucky Wildcats, Alabama Crimson Tide and Oakland Raiders for a year. So with both of those, the Vols should be in good hands.

But what about the personnel? The secondary has everybody returning at four of five starting positions, and three of those positions are locked up already. What happens with the other two spots and the depth could help determine this season.

As we get set to preview the Tennessee football secondary, we’ll analyze those starters and the leap we expect them to make along with the favorites to start elsewhere and how much the depth can develop. With five new recruits added this year, the unit is getting extremely deep.

That will make this preview a bit longer than the other one. Our preview for starters will have five slots, after all, and then we have 13 guys to get to when we look at our projected backups. So there are lots of bodies, and we’ll have separate pages for the backup safeties and cornerbacks.

The quality of those players on the roster, though, still remains a question. It’s like many positions on this year’s roster, where the quantity is there but nobody knows about the quality. We’ll get to all that here.

Despite the length, the starters, backups, and biggest questions will once again all be on their own pages. And, as always, we’ll close with a final take. So let’s get started by analyzing the Tennessee football secondary heading into 2019.

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