Tennessee football: Five biggest ways coronavirus cancellations impacts Vols

5. Recruitment of Zachary Evans

This is an underrated part of how the coronavirus outbreak is affecting Tennessee football, and it’s unique to the Vols. However, we don’t know yet if it will actually work in their favor or not. Zachary Evans is a five-star running back in the 2020 recruiting class. He initially committed to and signed with the Georgia Bulldogs but was then released from his letter-of-intent in January.

Evans’ signing and then release from his LOI meant he would have to sign after National Signing Day, and he was always planning on keeping his recruitment open through March. Well, with March upon us, recruiting has been put on hold, and that means all the teams pursuing Evans also had to take a step back. Rocky Top was one of those programs.

Given the fact that Evans is from North Shore High School in Houston and was being recruited hard by Jay Graham when he was with the Texas A&M Aggies, the Vols had a major advantage. They were making headway with Evans and then hired Graham in the process. So their first top 10 class in five years had a chance to take another major step forward.

At the same time, though, the Florida Gators were gaining a lot of ground with Evans, and he had a planned visit with them put on hold due to the outbreak. So this is something that potentially could have helped Jeremy Pruitt and co. get the momentum back. We just don’t know for sure.