Tennessee football: Five positives from Vols hiring LB coach Shelton Felton

3. Recruiting past with Rocky Top and the state of Tennessee

This builds off of the connections that Shelton Felton has to Jeremy Pruitt and Tennessee football. Before he took the job with the Akron Zips in 2019, he was actually on the road recruiting for the Vols’ 2019 class during the offseason.

Offensive coordinator Tyson Helton had taken the head coaching job of the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, so Pruitt could use an off-field staff member while he was looking for a replacement. He ended up tapping Felton.

As a result, Felton has a recruiting past with the Vols, meaning he’s not only familiar with the system, but he’s familiar with Pruitt’s recruiting methods and how to recruit for UT. Those things are big deals, and nobody should overlook them.

Not only does he have connections recruiting for Rocky Top, though, but he has connections recruiting in the state of Tennessee. Remember, he spent two seasons as an on-field assistant with the Chattanooga Mocs, so albeit at a smaller level, he still had to be able to recruit and build connections with the high school talent in the area.

In fact, that may make him a bigger asset, as it’s actually a much harder to recruit at that level because the competition is just as fierce, and the evaluations become much more difficult. So Felton brings a lot to the table when it comes to recruiting the state of Tennessee, where evaluating talent can be tough. That’s another positive for Pruitt hiring him.