With only one All-SEC player, Tennessee football doesn’t have lots of preseason recognition. These 10 Volunteers could win postseason awards.
When you go 5-7, lose six games by 25 or more points and have no players taken in the NFL Draft, conventional wisdom is that your team doesn’t have lots of individual talent. This all explains why Tennessee football only had one preseason All-SEC player, and he was on special teams.
If the Vols have a turnaround season in Jeremy Pruitt’s second year, they’ll have lots more players gain recognition in the postseason. It’s just a natural thing that happens when your team is successful. Somebody is going to stand out.
After a year of developing in the pro-style and 3-4 defense, Tennessee football has lots of candidates who could end up getting recognition for the postseason. Many are in prime position to benefit from UT’s systems with Jim Chaney and Derrick Ansley as offensive and defensive coordinators. But who are these players?
In this post, we’re going to take a look at those likely candidates to achieve postseason recognition. Our criteria includes their likelihood of seeing lots of playing time, how much the system benefits their chances of standing out, and their health. Oh, and we obviously analyze how effective they can be.
These are players most likely either to win awards or be named All-SEC or All-American when the season ends. This does not mean they are the best players on the roster by any stretch of the imagination, and lots of this is based on potential.
However, given what we’ve seen from them in the past and the hype behind some of them entering this year, they have a great chance to be in postseason conversations at the end of the year. So let’s go ahead and break down who they are. Here are our 10 Vols most likely to receive postseason recognition for Tennessee football’s 2019 season.