Tennessee football continues filling big needs with late JuCo DB addition
It’s not just the transfer portal where Tennessee football is finding help to offset so many of its losses in the transition from Jeremy Pruitt to Josh Heupel. The Vols are now adding late commitments and did so again Monday.
Junior college defensive back Roterius Torrence became a late addition to the Vols’ roster. Initially from Bessemer City High School in Alabama, Torrence comes out of Hutchinson Community College in Kansas. He is unrated on 247Sports and Rivals.
Listed as a 6’3″ 195-pound cornerback, Torrence is in the midst of his second season at Hutchinson, which was delayed until the spring due to COVID He announced his decision to join Tennessee football on Twitter.
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With Torrence in the secondary, the Blue Dragons have gone 7-0 this year and will play Snow College for the NJCAA Championship in Little Rock, Ark. on Saturday June 5. For his part, Torrence has come away with 20 tackles, three tackles for a loss and six pass breakups.
Torrence joins Auburn Tigers defensive back Kamal Hadden as two late additions to the Vols’ roster in the secondary. That’s a huge area of need with the transfer of Key Lawrence, the early departure of Bryce Thompson and Shawn Shamburger currently in the portal.
Considering how bad the secondary already was this year before those guys left, UT needs all the help it can get. Torrence and Hadden can certainly provide some of that, as can newcomers De’Shawn Rucker, Christian Charles and Kaemen Marley, although Charles and Marley are athletes who could play elsewhere.
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UT also increases its number of junior college transfers in 2021 to five, as Torrence joins Byron Young, Andison Coby, Jeremiah Crawford and Tiyon Evans, who was his teammate last year at Hutchinson. Combine that with nine new transfers from the portal, and despite all the losses, Tennessee football has added some talent from last year’s 3-7 team.