Tennessee football 2020 preview by position: LBs

Here is a look at the Tennessee football Volunteers at linebacker for 2020.

Ever since taking over, Jeremy Pruitt has done his best to rebuild the depth at linebacker for Tennessee football. After a defense that relied almost solely on the nickel package under Bob Shoop, it was necessary.

The Vols were making the transition from a 4-3 that usually operated out of a 4-2-5 into a 3-4. Now, yes, Pruitt still uses the nickel a lot, but his changes required that he add lots more linebackers to his unit, even if he did move weakside defensive ends to the position.

There’s a reason Tennessee football has two coaches for linebacker, one coaching outside linebackers and another coaching inside linebackers. This year, by the way, those coaches are new, as Brian Niedermeyer moved to inside linebackers to replace Kevin Sherrer, and Shelton Felton was added as Chris Rumph’s replacement to coach outside linebackers.

On top of that, UT loses its top inside linebacker and leader of the defense, Daniel Bituli, and its top edge rusher, Darrell Taylor. Bituli’s value was shown by the fact that the Vols’ 0-2 start against two Group of Five schools came without him in the lineup. They didn’t lose again once he returned to any team that didn’t finish the year in the top 10.

Meanwhile, Taylor was the most highly touted NFL prospect on the team, and he was taken in the second round of the NFL Draft by the Seattle Seahawks. Simply put, losing Bituli and Taylor is devastating for this unit.

As we continue with our preview by position for the Vols, our linebackers preview will separate players by inside and outside linebacker. Now, Pruitt’s long-term goal is to have a bunch of guys who can play all four positions, and his recruiting, especially in 2020, inched him closer to doing that. However, he’s not there yet.

To deal with the separation, we’ll look at projected starting inside linebackers, projected starting outside linebackers, projected rotational linebackers, projected backup inside linebackers and projected backup outside linebackers. As always, we’ll look at the biggest questions and give a final take as well. So here is our preview for Tennessee football linebackers heading into 2020.