Four players Tennessee football lost are among ESPN’s top 15 newcomers
Does anybody need a reminder as to how much talent Tennessee football lost in the transfer portal this year? Well, let’s just say the players who left are making lots of other programs excited about what they have gained.
In a list ranking the top 50 newcomers for 2021 by Tom VanHaaren of ESPN, four players who left the Vols made it into the top 15. Three made the top 10, and two made the top five. The list included players who redshirted as freshmen in 2020, junior college transfers, regular transfers and freshmen in the 2021 recruiting class.
Transfers from Tennessee football included Henry To’o To’o of the Alabama Crimson Tide at No. 1 and then Eric Gray, Wanya Morris and Key Lawrence of the Oklahoma Sooners at No. 5, No. 7 and No. 13 respectively. So it’s safe to say Oklahoma raided Rocky Top.
Given how many players were eligible for this list, it’s crazy that the Vols could have four in the top 15. Only five other schools had multiple players on the list: The Clemson Tigers, LSU Tigers, Georgia Bulldogs, Ohio State Buckeyes and Oklahoma.
With three players, leaving, Clemson was the only other school with more than two. Nobody outside of UT lost four. In fact, Clemson was the only other school with multiple players in the top 15 at two. Simply put, the Vols dominated everybody in this stat that nobody would want to dominate it.
To be fair, it’s understandable. Rocky Top is coming off a 3-7 season, fired its head coach and is now in the midst of an NCAA investigation. At least one of the players who transferred, Gray, has been named in stories that sparked the investigation. However, it leaves Josh Heupel with a mess to clean up his first year.
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It is true that Tennessee football added lots of talent in the portal, but it doesn’t match what the Vols lost. Still, some of that talent is underrated, and the Vols still have a decent bit of returning talent. Combine that with a solid coach, and the potential is clearly there. If they overcome all this to get six wins, it’ll be the story of the season.