Tennessee football: 10 safest starting spots in 2021 fall camp
Free safety. 5. 839. Scouting Report. Pick Analysis. Senior. Trevon Flowers. player
5’11” 200 pounds
Yes, both safety spots are, for lack of a better word, safe. Jaylen McCollough took over the starting free safety spot to begin with in 2019 because Trevon Flowers suffered a season-ending injury after breaking his leg on an interception return. When Flowers came back to resume his free safety role in 2020, McCollough moved to strong safety to replace the departed Nigel Warrior.
Tennessee football is lucky to have both safeties returning given the experience they have. Like McCollough, Flowers had to take part in those secondary struggles last year, but that was due to a combination of Warrior’s departure, Shawn Shamburger’s absence for most of the year and injuries. While McCollough played hurt, Flowers had to come back from injury.
This year, Flowers should be fully healthy, and with a full offseason for the first time in two years, he should be in much better condition. He did start all 10 games last year and had the best season of his career, registering two tackles for a loss, a forced fumble, three pass deflections and 62 tackles, 36 of which were solo.
Taking all this into account, Flowers is safe because of his own merits, not so much the depth at the position. Again, Theo Jackson, Cheyenne Labruzza and Tyus Fields could apply competition, but the same factors that applied to McCollough with those guys apply to Flowers.