For 11 Tennessee football true freshmen, spring practice will be their first chance to showcase their abilities against college competition. The Vols’ 2021 recruiting class had 14 non-junior college signees, and eight of them enrolled in January. Another three walk-ons have also enrolled.
As Josh Heupel installs his new system and focuses on building for the future, all of these players have as much of a chance as anybody else to make an impression for spring ball. In this post, we’re going to rank them by who has the biggest opportunity.
Our criteria include the expectations of them from a talent perspective and how open the position they play is on the roster. This is how Tennessee football’s true freshman early enrollees stack up against each other based on those factors.
6’4″ 212 pounds
We put multiple walk-ons on the first page. Sully McDermott is one of the six quarterbacks on the Vols’ roster. He joined UT out of Marvin Ridge High School in North Carolina and will take part in the QB race with everybody else.
However, McDermott is already a walk-on, and being an early enrollee doesn’t give him any built-in advantage. All five other quarterbacks are there for the spring as well. Because he’s the one walk-on who isn’t a specialist, we had to put him down here.
6’1″ 230 pounds
By being a specialist that always involves walk-ons, Grant Reid has a better chance to play for Rocky Top than many walk-ons. However, the in-state product of Baylor School is actually going to a more loaded position than people realize.
Matthew Salansky handled all long snapping duties for Tennessee football last year, and Will Albright is a rare player who received a scholarship specifically for his abilities as a snapper. With those two on the roster, Reid doesn’t have much of a chance to play either.