Tennessee football: Five strongest cities contributing to Vols’ 2022 roster

3. Nashville, Tenn.

When looking at projected contributors, there’s a case to put Nashville below Knoxville. However, Tennessee football has 15 players on the roster from the area, and nearly half of them are on scholarship and potential contributors. That’s enough to put the city over Knoxville.

The only confirmed contributor, though, is Princeton Fant, who will ironically co-start with Jacob Warren at tight end. Elijah Simmons is the other contributor, but despite going to Overton High School in Nashville, he’s originally from Memphis.

That holds true for the two new transfers in the secondary who went to Ensworth High School in Nashville, Wesley Walker from the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Andre Turrentine from the Ohio State Buckeyes. Both are actually from other areas of the state, as Walker is from Lewisburg while Turrentine is from Murfreesboro.

Speaking of players from elsewhere, Walker Merrill is competing for a starting job and is from Brentwood, as is Toby Wilson, the backup place kicker who handled kickoff duties last year. All of this makes for a murky collection of players “from” the city.

However, Jackson Lampley, William Parker and UCF Knights transfer Jackson Hannah are all projected eventual contributors. Add in Lucien Brunetti, Patrick Wilk and William Wright along with Montrell Bandy of Mount Juliet, Derek Taylor of Greenbrier and Matt Gaca of Franklin, and you’ve got more than enough players for this city to be No. 3.