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Ranking Tennessee football true freshmen by potential early impact

By Caleb Calhoun

KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 15: A view of the outside of Neyland Stadium before a game between the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers on September 15, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TN - SEPTEMBER 15: A view of the outside of Neyland Stadium before a game between the Florida Gators and Tennessee Volunteers on September 15, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by John Sommers II/Getty Images) /
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This is our ranking of the 2020 Tennessee football Volunteers true freshmen.

Even with a ton of talent returning in 2020, Jeremy Pruitt is definitely going to look to true freshmen in different spots to make an impact for Tennessee football. Why waste the talent that made up the Vols’ top 10 recruiting class?

One big reason for the hype behind UT this year is the emergence of true freshmen last year. Henry To’o To’o, Wanya Morris, Eric Gray, Jaylen McCullough, Brian Maurer and Darnell Wright all made an impact, and all but one of those guys are expected to start this year.

Given the fact that Tennessee football is still developing, it’s pretty clear Pruitt will once again want to turn to a youth movement where he can this year. That’ll really set the stage for expectations on Rocky Top entering the 2021 season. But who could help with that?

In this post, we’re going rank the true freshmen based on who is most likely to have the biggest impact this year. Our rankings take into account our projections for their talent, a bit of their experience and the needs at each position.

Talent projections include what their recruiting rankings were, what coaches have said about them in practice and how they fit into what Pruitt likes at different positions based on their size and speed. Experience won’t count for much, but early enrollees will get a slight nod.

Taking all that into account, it’ll be impossible for all of these guys to make an early impact at the same time since some of them will be competing at similar positions. However, this is just a look at the likelihood of many of these guys having an impact.

So which players are we talking about? Who’s going to make a run at a Freshman All-American season this year? Let’s go ahead and break all of that down. These are Tennessee football’s top 10 true freshmen most likely to have an impact on the team for the 2020 season.

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