Tennessee football’s top 10 NFL single seasons of 2010s

Yards per return and return touchdowns leader; First-Team All-Pro

He spent one year with Tennessee football, back in 2012, and joined with Justin Hunter, Tyler Bray and Mychal Rivera to create arguably the most prolific offense in school history. Of course, they still went 5-7 because of a historically bad defense, but they were fun to watch.

Anyway, Cordarrelle Patterson catapulted from that year in which he set a school record with 1,858 all-purpose yards from scrimmage to become a first-round NFL Draft pick by the Minnesota Vikings. Immediately at the next level, he showed just how great of a player he is with the ball in his hands.

Patterson is a three-time First-Team All-Pro returner, but being an elite specialist alone is hard to make this list. His rookie season was a different story, though. In addition to 1,393 kickoff return yards and a league-leading two kickoff return touchdowns and 32.4 yards per kickoff return, Patterson was a major threat offensively, which didn’t apply to his other elite return years.

As a rookie, Patterson caught 45 passes for 469 yards and four touchdowns. He added 12 carries for 158 yards and three touchdowns. So he was an elite return threat but had nine touchdowns overall on the season. It’s probably the best overall pro season by a return specialist from Rocky Top in history, rivaling that of what Willie Gault so often did throughout the 1980s.