Tennessee football: 10 Vols who should have breakout seasons in 2019

Tennessee football already has a proven elite playmaker at running back in Ty Chandler. He averaged five and a half yards a carry last year en route to 630 yards and also had seven total touchdowns, including being the first Vol running back ever to have three straight games with a receiving touchdown.

However, Jeremy Pruitt has been clear from the start that he wants to go three-deep with running back. The other guy who was seeing action alongside Chandler last year was Tim Jordan, and he started the first game when Chandler was hurt against the West Virginia Mountaineers, going for over 100 yards and scoring two touchdowns.

For the year, he had 522 yards and three touchdowns along with another 116 receiving yards. Those would seem like stats close to Chandler, but Jordan was nowhere near the splash playmaker Chandler was, and he only averaged four yards a carry.

This year, with Jim Chaney’s return likely to instill a much bigger focus on the running game, there’s room for Chandler and Jordan both to be major playmakers. Jordan’s four yards a carry was actually pretty impressive last year given how bad the offensive line was. If that unit gets better, he should explode this year. And that’s why he’s on the list.