Tennessee football makes cut for 2021 edge rusher Naquan Brown

The Virginia edge rusher has the Tennessee football Volunteers in his top six.

One edge rusher from Virginia, Darrell Taylor, just became the highest pick in the 2020 NFL Draft for Tennessee football, as he was taken in the second round by the Seattle Seahawks. Now, the Vols could be in the running for the potential future version of him.

Rocky Top made the top six for outside linebacker Naquan Brown. A four-star on Rivals, Brown comes out of Ocean Lakes High School in Virginia Beach, Va. The 6’3″ 200-pound 2021 prospect is a top 150 player nationally, the No. 6 overall player at his position and the No. 5 player from his home state.

In addition to Tennessee football, Brown had the LSU Tigers, the Penn State Nittany Lions, the Miami Hurricanes, the Pittsburgh Panthers and the Virginia Tech Hokies on his list. He announced the schools that made the cut on Twitter.

Obviously, Jeremy Pruitt’s 3-4 scheme calls for consistently replenishing his edge rushers, and that consists of weakside defensive ends and outside linebackers. Strongside defensive ends are usually the guys who play up on the line at the one end spot in this scheme.

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With the departure of Taylor, the conversion of Jordan Allen to tight end and Deandre Johnson entering his senior season, UT is going to need lots of help at the position in the future. They added four-stars Tamarion McDonald and Morven Joseph in 2020 to help with that, and four-star Dylan Brooks is committed for the 2021 class.

As a result, the Vols certainly have help on the way, but they could use more, and Brown would be a great addition for them. The Taylor-Virginia connection could end up helping as well, and UT’s No. 2 ranked class doesn’t have anybody from that state committed yet for 2021.

Currently, the Rivals Future Cast has LSU as the favorite by a majority to land him, and Pitt is the favorite by a plurality on the Rivals Fan Future Cast. However, Virginia Tech is a unanimous favorite to land him on the 247Sports Crystal Ball. Simply put, nobody knows where he is going to end up based on these projections, so Tennessee football could certainly be in play.