Tennessee football: Ranking all 10 Vols head coaches’ second NFL Draft classes

Jeremy Pruitt is the 11th Tennessee football head coach to produce a second NFL Draft class. Here is how the other 10 Volunteers leaders’ classes rank.

Heading into this weekend, Jeremy Pruitt will be looking for his second NFL Draft class to be a bit better than his first. After all, Tennessee football did not have anybody selected in 2019, which was more of an indictment against Butch Jones than Pruitt.

Despite a small class, with only nine players technically eligible and eight with a realistic shot at making a pro roster, only six players have any real shot at getting drafted. It’s likely that the number is closer to three when it’s all over.

However, even if just one or two players is selected, then Pruitt’s second NFL Draft class will not be the worst in history among Tennessee football coaches’ second draft classes. After all, a few coaches had nobody from their second draft class taken.

In this post, we’re going to rank those second draft classes of the Vols’ 10 coaches who produced them. Obviously, that generally means the draft class after a coach’s second year. However, one head coach was with UT for years before the draft was instituted, so his second draft class was not at the end of his second year on the job.

We’ll explain all of that in the post as we get to that person. For the other nine, though, their second draft class was after their second year. Obviously, our criteria for this is pretty simple. We will rank the depth of each draft class and how many higher picks they had. Success in the pros will also matter along with any undrafted free agents who became steals.

All of those things matter when breaking down this list. So let’s go ahead and get started. This is our ranking of all Tennessee football head coaches’ second NFL Draft classes, nine of which came after a coach’s second year on the job.