Ranking Tennessee football’s 11 freshman 2021 early enrollees with most to gain
8. 839. Scouting Report. Place kicker. J.T. Carver. Martin, Tenn.. player. Pick Analysis
5’11” 175 pounds
Yes, we actually have a walk-on ahead of Isaac Washington. J.T. Carver joins Tennessee football as an in-state kicker who is also an early enrollee. The product of Westview High School is joining the Vols at a specialist position where there is no returning starter given the transfer of Brent Cimaglia to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
Taking that into account, Carver has a great chance to use this spring to land a starting role. However, we still have him down on this list not just because of the fact that he is a walk-on but because of who is also joining the program.
Josh Heupel added USC Trojans transfer kicker Chase McGrath earlier in the year to offset the loss of Cimaglia. McGrath is a proven kicker who is also an early enrollee, so it’s highly unlikely he would lose the kicking battle to a walk-on freshman.
Beyond McGrath, though, UT still returns Marshall Ware and Toby Wilson. Last year, when Cimaglia opted out of the season late after playing most of it with an injury, Wilson stepped in and kicked eight extra points, making seven of them. Simply put, there are too many kickers on the roster and some with college experience for us to place Carver too high here.