Tennessee Vols morning report: UT a candidate for USC transfer JT Daniels
USC Trojans transfer quarterback JT Daniels potentially going to the Tennessee Vols leads our Volunteers news for Friday, April 17, 2020.
Happy Friday. There appears to be light at the end of the tunnel of this coronavirus shutdown, as governors and politicians are tepidly working on reopening things, and that could be good news for the Tennessee Vols. But we have no way of knowing the timetable of everything reopening, so that’s not the main news of the day.
Our morning update on Rocky Top leads with the football program being on the radar of an elite transfer. There aren’t many confirmed developments that took place in the last 24 hours, but this in an interesting twist.
Other new involves an analyst being high on Tennessee basketball and an award for a men’s tennis player. So there’s not much news heading into the weekend, but there are some interesting things to cover. Let’s start with the football news.
Vols a possible destination for USC QB – Greg Biggins/Chris Hummer, 247Sports
With the news of USC Trojans quarterback JT Daniels transferring, numerous candidates popped up on the list to land him. There were seven overall, and the Tennessee Vols football team was one of them. Daniels completed 60 percent of his passes for 2,672 yards and 14 touchdowns with 10 interceptions as a freshman. He suffered a season-ending injury in the opener of last year.
"Tennessee has a few things going for it in terms of familiarity thanks to the presence of Tee Martin, who served as Daniels’ co-offensive coordinator during his freshman season in Los Angeles. The Vols are also far from set at quarterback. Jarrett Guarantano finished the 2019 season strong and Brian Maurer flashed some as a true freshman. But neither one of them truly took command of the offense."
Analyst high on Tennessee basketball – Wes Rucker, GoVols247
Rob Dauster of NBC Sports shocked the Tennessee Vols men’s basketball world by listing Yves Pons as one of his top 32 prospects in this year’s Mock NBA Draft. He then ranked UT at No. 13 in next year’s preseason poll. Recently, he spoke in the GoVols247 podcast, and even had some praise for this past year’s team. Here’s a bit of what he said.
"“I would make the argument that they might have been the best team in the SEC last season if they actually had a point guard — if Lamonte Turner’s shoulder had completely fallen off, if Jordan Bone had not decided to leave school a year early to be the 57th pick in the NBA Draft. “I’m not criticizing (Bone). Like, he’s making a lot more money than I’m making, so good for him. But if he had been back in the school and they’d had a point guard, they basically had everything else.”"
Andrew Rogers named to all-community service team – SECSports
UT junior Andrew Rogers represented the Vols on Thursday when he was named to the SEC Men’s Tennis All-Community Service Team. Rogers was a captain on this past year’s team.
"Andrew Rogers is a member of Tennessee’s VOLeaders Academy and traveled with the cohort to the Republic of Rwanda in Central Africa. The 10 day trip saw Rogers and the cohort partner with the UTIA Smith Center for International Sustainable Agriculture which leads a UT-Rwanda partnership in helping support Musanze households in small-scale broiler chicken enterprises."