Tennessee football’s top five sophomores for 2020

KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE - NOVEMBER 30: Eric Gray #3 of the Tennessee Volunteers runs with the ball against the Vanderbilt Commodores during the second quarter at Neyland Stadium on November 30, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Silas Walker/Getty Images)
KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE - NOVEMBER 30: Eric Gray #3 of the Tennessee Volunteers runs with the ball against the Vanderbilt Commodores during the second quarter at Neyland Stadium on November 30, 2019 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Silas Walker/Getty Images) /
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Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images
Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images /

These are the five best Tennessee football Volunteers sophomores entering the year.

A big reason for the excitement behind Tennessee football entering the 2020 season is the number of returning starters who were just freshmen last year. Jeremy Pruitt relied on many of them, which was a big reason for the disastrous start but the strong finish.

This year, the Vols have 10 players back who started at least one game as freshmen last season, and numerous more are back who saw significant action. Now, they didn’t all start at the same time, which is pretty obvious given the fact that two of them were quarterbacks.

However, that gives them plenty of room to make a major jump this year, and it’s likely that seven of those players are full-time starters as sophomore this year. Tennessee football could have up to 10 of those players being full-time starters as well.

Who would those players be, though, and which players are the likely most impactful for 2020? Well, in this post, that’s what we’re going to break down. We continue with our ranking of players by class, this time moving onto the sophomores.

At this point, we’ll be including both true sophomores and redshirt sophomores. Our criteria remains the same. We’re looking at the sophomores most likely to make the biggest impact, and we’ll base it off their proven level of production along with the need at the position.

A couple of players flirted with Freshman All-American status last year, and three earned Freshman All-SEC. However, the sophomore class is so loaded with rising talent that all three of those guys may not make the list.

If they don’t make it, who will? Well, that’s what we’re going to break down here. Let’s see the guys ready for a second-year surge. These are the five Tennessee football sophomores most likely to make an impact on the team this season.