Numerous Volunteers who were recruits with three-star ratings or lower will be key for Tennessee football in 2019. Here are the five most important ones.
For all the recruiting busts who have been a part of Tennessee football over the past decade and a half, there have also been plenty of steals. The Vols actually have a pretty solid history, even in their down years, of finding low-rated recruits and turning them into successful college players.
There’s no doubt that recruiting is the lifeblood of any program, and the ratings are relevant. Nobody wins a national championship without at least three top 10 recruiting classes over a four-year period.
It doesn’t mean that elite recruiting classes automatically turns into winning seasons. They just help a lot. But coaches building a program have to identify quality underrated talent, and that is Tennessee football’s situation this year.
As Jeremy Pruitt enters his second season on the job, he will rely on numerous key recruits to help him take the next step. However, guys he or Butch Jones identified who weren’t so highly touted on the recruiting trail will be a big deal for the Vols as well. And that’s what we’re breaking down here.
In this post, we will rank the top players on the Vols this year who did have such low ratings. These guys were all three-stars or lower on Rivals, which is the service our site prefers to rely on, and they were all three-stars or lower on the 247Sports Composite rankings, which takes all the key ones into account.
Because kickers, punters and tight ends almost never achieve four-star ratings or higher unless they are uniquely elite, we’re leaving those positions off the list. But that still leaves plenty of guys we know will be key for the Vols this year.
By the way, this list could have gone 10-deep. There are about 15 guys who were all three-star recruits or worse and are all in contention for significant playing time this year. So we only stuck with the top guys we know will see a lot of action.
Who are these key players? Why were they undervalued? And what do they bring to the table? Let’s break that down here with the top five Vols on the 2019 Tennessee football team who had a three-star rating or worse as recruits.