Tennessee football: Five most underrated recruits in Vols 2020 class

With 23 prospects giving Tennessee football a top 10 recruiting haul for 2020, the Volunteers have many underrated commitments.

No matter how great a recruiting class looks on paper, nobody knows which players will work out in the long run. Just look at the history of Tennessee football in the Rivals era. So many highly rated recruits turned out to be busts. Meanwhile, numerous underrated recruits thrived.

The best example of this is the Butch Jones years. Sure, he got back to back top five classes in 2014 and 2015. But his most productive class ended up being one that was his most disappointing at the time, the 2013 class when he first took over. Three-stars Joshua Dobbs and Cameron Were in that class. Then there were other key players like Jalen Reeves-Maybin.

After that, all Jones found were guys who never lived up to their potential with Tennessee football, even if they lived up to it once they transferred away. Taking that into account, everybody should reserve judgment on the Vols’ top 10 class this year.

There are lots of reasons to be excited about the guys Jeremy Pruitt brought in, and as we consistently bring up, he may not be done. After all, five-star running back Zachary Evans is still out there and figures to be a late commit.

Moving beyond Evans, though, underrated players in this class could end up thriving. Pruitt recruited multiple players who have three-star ratings across most or even all services, but one look at them suggests they could over-perform that.

In this post, we’re going to break down those underrated players. Our criteria is pretty simple. It’s simply who has the largest gap between their recruiting ranking and the value we see them providing when they arrive on Rocky Top.

UT has lots of guys who could end up making the class better than it already looks. Of course, to be fair, their may end up being guys making the class currently look better on paper than it really will be in the future.

Lots of things will determine the success of these players. But where did Jeremy Pruitt get a steal for the Vols? Let’s break that down here. These are the five most underrated commits in Tennessee football’s 2020 recruiting class.