University of Tennessee head coach Butch Jones continues to impress fans and national observers as he just turned in his second consecutive Top-5 recruiting class with a team that is a combined 12-13 in the past two seasons. But how important is the Tennessee Volunteers 2015 recruiting class in the program’s climb back to national relevance, and will it pay-off, literally, in the next year? Let’s take an in-depth look at what this really means for Tennessee football and how Jones is able to do it.
Tennessee Volunteers 2015 Recruiting Class Analysis
Tennessee has 29 overall commits. Of those:
- 10 are early enrollees already practicing with the team
- 17 signed on Wednesday
- 2 will blueshirt and will not be officially announced until the summer
Click here for a complete listing of Tennessee’s class, by player
Tennessee was able to recruit such high numbers because of attrition within the program. Six players left the program after the season ended, and three players have left in the last two weeks including back-up quarterback Nathan Peterman (transfer to Pittsburgh). In addition, freshman receiver Vic Wharton was granted permission to explore other options. If Wharton leaves, that will be ten players from last season’s team that have left the program. That creates a little room for Jones to count some recruits in other areas. Jones also leveraged the blueshirt option with two players, who had the opportunity to play elsewhere, choosing to stay with the Vols in that capacity.
By Rating:
- Tennessee finished with a composite 4.6 rating from the major recruiting services (4th 247 Sports, 5th in Rivals and ESPN)
- 4 players were rated five-star by one of the three services
- 13 (not including those listed above as five-stars) players were listed as four-star
Tennessee’s ability to attract and sign 17 4/5* high school players and finish with a composite Top 5 class even with the 12-13 two season record really is a testament to the recruiting ability of Jones and his staff. They are able to do this for several reasons.
First, they show these players that there is an opportunity to play immediately. Jalen Hurd, Derek Barnett, Jashon Roberstson, Josh Malone and Ethan Wolf were all freshman that had impact years in 2014. Jones and his staff have shown a willingness – even though it might be through necessity – to play and start large numbers of freshmen. This year will be no different as the Vols still don’t have the ideal depth at any position. Tennessee will again field the youngest team in the SEC this year.
Additionally, Jones doesn’t seem to like to redshirt guys unless necessary. Redshirting will become less common in college football anyways. High school programs are better and producing players physically ready to play at the college level more than in the past. Players who redshirt often times try to graduate in three years and if that occurs you could lose a guy to transfer after his sophomore year of football eligibility. And because players want to play immediately, those that can play immediately often times go to a program that doesn’t redshirt a large number of players.
Second, Jones is attracting talent because he is selling the past and the future. He has sold the past to the fan base, calling himself the “caretaker” of Tennessee football and hyping the history of the program, but he is selling the recruits on the future and laying out a clear strategy to get back to championship levels of football. The recruits are clearly buying into Jones’ vision and the performance indicating progress over the last two years.
Lastly, he is leveraging the players and recruits to a greater extent. Jones seems to be finding the right combinations of players and leveraging the ability of recruits to communicate with each other at levels not previously seen (through social media mainly) to build the recruiting network. Top national recruit Kahlil McKenzie was a recruiting machine on social media for the Vols, even getting into a minor twitter feud with Ole Miss Head Coach Hugh Freeze regarding the recruitment of Drew Richmond. Several recruits, including McKenzie, Richmond, Quart’e Sapp, and John Kelly all spoke about their relationships with the other recruits after their commitments or signings. Sure, recruits say similar things, but most times their comments are about their feelings with the location, school, coaching staff and current players – which Tennessee’s recruits also echoed. Rarely, however, do we see a recruiting class that has talked to each other this much, leveraging today’s technology, and had this much influence on each other.
We all know that the ratings don’t really mean much; but what it does show is that Jones is able to get to best evaluated high school talent to Knoxville even with seven years of mediocrity around the program. Additionally, looking at the 2013 and 2014 Recruiting Classes, Jones’ ability to evaluate talent and bring in the right people for this system seems to be good as well. Dobbs, Jalen Reeves-Maybin, Cameron Sutton, Hurd, Wolf, Robertson, Malone and Barnett are all examples of that.
Recruiting, in combination with proper talent evaluation, is the key.
By position:
- 3 Quarterbacks
- 5 Offensive Linemen
- 1 Wide Receiver
- 1 Running Back
- 1 Tight End
- 1 All Purpose Back
- 2 Athletes
- 6 Defensive Linemen
- 3 Linebackers
- 4 Defensive Backs
- 2 Special Teams
In addition to having a highly ranked class of recruits, Jones 2015 class is well rounded. He addressed key areas of need including talent at offensive line (Drew Richmond and Jack Jones), depth at linebacker (Quart’e Sapp, Darren Kirkland, Jr, and Austin Smith) and depth at quarterback. You can expect probably both Richmond and Jones to start on the offensive line, although Jones might move to guard. And you can expect at least one of the quarterbacks to redshirt. In all likelihood, one of those three will not finish his career at Tennessee, so it’ll be interesting to see how new offensive coordinator Mike DeBord handles the depth chart this season at quarterback.
The jewel of this class, however, is the defensive line. Jones put together an impressive class of defensive linemen, headlined by Kahlil McKenzie, Shy Tuttle, and Kyle Phillips. You would have a hard time arguing that a better overall defensive line class in the country exists somewhere else. Both McKenzie and Phillips were dominant in the Under Armor All-American game. In addition, the other three defensive linemen are all top prospects as well. Tennessee fans are very excited about what their defensive line will look like next year.
And Jones did a nice job rounding out the other positions as well. He is building a solid program at every position. Tennessee is probably still a little too heavy at tight end and still a little light at running back, although the addition of Vincent Perry in the summer and the possible return of Treyvon Paulk will help the depth issue there. The only other concern is the lack of experience behind quarterback Josh Dobbs.
From State:
- 9 Tennessee
- 7 Georgia
- 2 North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, California
- 1 Florida, Michigan, Indiana
- 2 JUCO
Jones has also shown the ability to go get recruits anywhere in the country. This is important for a couple of reasons. First, Jones is trying to lay in-roads in multiple regions for future recruiting success. Any coach at Tennessee, in order to bring in the talent to win championships, must recruit Georgia well. Jones did that. Second, you need to build a network in Florida and Texas where the SEC Network and brand are strong and the talent is abundant. This is still a work in progress. Texas was decent, with a four-star quarterback and three-star cornerback, but Florida’s one recruit was a punter. Jones and his staff must be better at recruiting in Florida in the future. California is another talent rich area and for Tennessee to get two top recruits, five-star McKenzie and a four-star quarterback speaks to their ability to go into California and have success. But Jones is trying to audaciously build a national network reaching into traditional Big Ten markets Michigan and Indiana and traditional ACC markets North Carolina and Virginia. If Tennessee continues to improve on the field, look for Jones to continue to focus on building and expanding his recruiting network with future classes.
And, he continues to rebuild the wall around Tennessee. Jones secured the top four recruits in the state of Tennessee, holding off LSU and Vanderbilt in Nashville/Middle Tennessee and Ole Miss in Memphis. The Nashville/Middle Tennessee area is a rapidly growing demographic area and the quality of high school football there is getting better. Jones is establishing stranglehold on the Middle Tennessee area and that will pay dividends down the road. The biggest in-state recruits that left Tennessee went to Oregon and Ole Miss, which doesn’t hurt Tennessee in future competition as the Vols don’t play either team in the next four years.
Lastly, Tennessee outspent every other school in recruiting budget, spending over $2 million in recruiting for the Class of 2015. Tennessee spent similar money last season. Now this investment, which yielded the desired results, must start to pay dividends on the field. Having the highest recruiting-money-spent per win ratio in the nation is not a good thing for the Tennessee program.
Overall, Tennessee’s 2015 recruiting class was excellent. Coach Butch Jones was able to get about 75% of the recruits we think Tennessee had as primary targets, which is an outstanding percentage. Tennessee’s class was well-rounded and added talent where talent was needed, depth where depth was needed and addressed program personnel weaknesses. But championships recruiting doth not make. The talent has to be coached up, schemes have to put the talent in the right place, and luck has to keep the talent healthy. There are a lot of variables to a successful college football program and recruiting is only one of those variables. But fans on Rocky Top have a reason to be excited again. Can Jones start to translate his success in recruiting into more and more wins next season? We only have to wait seven more months to find out.
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Main Photo by Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images
