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Tennessee football: Ranking position groups in Vols 2020 recruiting class with grades

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 29: A general view of Neyland Stadium during the South Carolina Gamecocks game against the Tennessee Volunteers on October 29, 2011 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 29: A general view of Neyland Stadium during the South Carolina Gamecocks game against the Tennessee Volunteers on October 29, 2011 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images
Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images /

5. Defensive Tackles: B+

Number of commitments: 2

  • Dominic Bailey

4-star; 6’3″ 290 pounds; Baltimore, Md.; St. Frances High School

  • Omari Thomas

4-star; 6’5″ 301 pounds; Eads, Tenn.; Briarcrest High School

Sticking with the trenches, Tennessee football matched its problem with defensive backs here. The Vols got quality, but they didn’t really improve things in numbers. After all, you always want to keep a revolving door of lots of defensive tackles, especially given how much they’re used in Jeremy Pruitt’s 3-4 scheme, and they only got two.

Savion Williams, Emmit Gooden, Aubrey Solomon and Darel Middleton will all be seniors this year. None were last year, but that’s a major dropoff when you’re only replacing the unit with two guys. There is some good news that puts this unit in better shape than the secondary, though.

For starters, Pruitt has a deep collection of young guys ready to step into those roles and who just haven’t had the chance yet. Greg Emerson is the only one, and he has thrived. Kurrott Garland also showed promise. Then there’s Elijah Simmons and Kingston Harris. So he’s got four guys in there right now who will be on the roster past 2020.

On top of that, now he has two four-stars committed going forward. That means with this class, he was able to assure he’d have six guys in 2021. And he did it by adding real quality talent. One more body would have made this grade an A-. But it didn’t fully match what’s leaving.

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