Tennessee football recruiting successes rattling SEC rivals on Twitter

Jeremy Pruitt has been hitting it big on the trail for Tennessee football. The Volunteers’ string commitments has rattled rival schools and fans.

If you go to Twitter, you’ll see every excuse in the book. Tennessee football recruited a bunch of overrated talent. They must be paying the players. Nobody is paying attention to who they get because they can’t win on the field with that talent.

That’s what happens when you go into the heart of your rival schools’ states and pick talent away from them, as Jeremy Pruitt has done. From Sunday, April 26 through Sunday, May 3, Pruitt hauled in seven commitments, five of whom were four-stars.

All seven of those commitments are from states of other SEC rivals. Three came from Florida, and two of those were once committed to the Florida Gators. Two came from Georgia, one came from South Carolina, and one came from Alabama.

Well, if Tennessee football is luring overrated talent, or if they are irrelevant anyway, rival schools have a funny way of showing it. Forget what regular people are saying on Twitter. The official football Twitter accounts of these rival schools have all suspiciously targeted Rocky Top over the past week.

It started on Thursday, April 30. The Vols secured a pickup from four-star inside linebacker Terrence Lewis that day, one of the former Florida commits. Two days earlier, they had gotten a commitment from four-star wide receiver Julian Nixon, right out of the heart of Georgia.

How did the Bulldogs respond? Well, the school’s official Twitter account chose that day specifically to tweet a highlight reel showing UGA’s win over the Vols last year, and they made clear to say “third consecutive win.”

Yeah, sure, let’s all believe Georgia wasn’t in any way trying to respond to Tennessee football’s recruiting successes. Surely, they were just ignoring it. Well, if they were trying to reverse course, it didn’t work, as four-star running back Cody Brown, who is also from that state, committed to the Vols three days later.

Earlier this week, the Alabama Crimson Tide then decided to get in on the action. UT got the ball rolling on this red-hot streak with a commitment from four-star defensive end Dylan Brooks out of Alabama the day after the NFL Draft ended. Brooks was a high priority for Nick Saban and co. They really wanted him.

So how did the Tide decide to respond? Well, on Wednesday, May 6, their official football Twitter account tweeted out the radio call of Jarrett Guarantano’s goal-line fumble last October that was returned the other way for a touchdown.

It was suspicious timing once again to tweet this right as the Vols were getting favorable press from their recruiting successes. But if there were any doubts that Tennessee football was rattling rivals, it was put to rest the next day.

We already talked about how the Vols picked up two former Florida Gators commitments, both from Florida. One of them was Lewis, and the other one was four-star defensive back Kamar Wilcoxson. Defensive back De’Shawn Rucker became their third pickup during this time from the Sunshine State.

So how did the Gators respond? Well, Thursday evening, their football account went on a 16-tweet barrage reminiscing last year’s win over the Vols. Yes, they tweeted 16 times within an hour about beating a program they supposedly don’t care about.

Of course, this is part of the culture of the Gators. Remember, as we reported here, a Florida staff member actually had the nerve to tweet at Wilcoxson after his commitment in a clear troll way. So the Vols are in their head.

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Let’s face it. Tennessee football has SEC rivals rattled. Florida, Georgia and Alabama Twitter accounts all targeted the Vols over the past week. To be fair, the South Carolina Gamecocks didn’t say anything, but UT blew them out last year, and the one commitment from South Carolina, running back Tiyon Evans, is a junior college guy. So it’s a bit different.

Still, the other rivals are rattled, and Tennessee football’s recruiting is also rattling coaches on a national level. Remember, Oklahoma Sooners assistant coach Will Johnson tweeted last week that the hype is not real, but his tweets are protected.

That is likely to become a bigger story now. UT secured a commitment from offensive lineman Colby Smith out of North Carolina, and away from Mack Brown’s Tar Heels, earlier this week. Over the weekend, there are two four-stars from Baltimore set to announce, and Rocky Top is a favorite to land both of them.

As a result, this No. 2 ranked class could continue to grow. Tennessee football is back going national again to secure prospects, and Jeremy Pruitt is clearly rattling other schools as a result. Anybody associated with one of the rival schools feeling the need to bring up the Vols is proof of that being the case.