College Football Recruiting
By Doug Matthews
Assistant Coaches sell various players who they recruit to the head coach. The more players that they can sell to the head coach, the better they look in the eyes of recruiting services and coaches. They often have dissenting opinions, which can be heated discussion, over the players who they should offer a scholarship to.
Bob Welton is the Director of Player Personnel. He is a former NFL scout. At UT. He is the closest staff member to Butch Jones and all recruiting information flows through him.. Welton and Butch Jones work hand in hand on recruiting and Welton is who Butch Jones turns to for anything recruiting-wise.
All scholarship offers are extended by the head coach-Butch Jones. Commitments can only be accepted by the head coach only-Butch Jones. This protects the assistant coaches who recruit the prospects. Any changes in recruiting direction by a school are made by the head coach and absolves the assistant coach of responsibility.
UT has a large room in the coaching offices, called a War Room On the walls of the War Room is an area for recruiting, where all prospects that they are recruiting are listed and ranked in order of preference. Each player has a plate with his information on it. That information includes, grade point average, size, speed, character comments, etc
Each recruit is ranked by and listed by position.
UT has what they call a underclassmen depth chart. This depth chart does not include upperclassmen, but does include all of the incoming freshmen, rising freshmen and sophomores in the program. The staff uses this big board as a visual aid to get a picture of where their numbers are short. They also have information on the underclassmen in regards to their standing in the program. This allows the staff to see where any future departures could affect the depth at each position and gives the staff a better of idea of where they have or will have needs to recruit to fill. With this aid, Butch Jones and Bob Welton know how many players that they can sign in each class.
UT will sign 24 players in this class. Swafford is the 25th player in this class when it is completed in February. Any extra signees would cause the staff to squeeze an additional player or recruit out of the program. Matthews says that UT will not accept any recruits with questionable character in this class and that the team is not in the position of accepting just any commitment.
Doug Matthews said that we lose on average 3 commitments every year and that this year is likely no different. He said you can usually add another to the list, so we will likely lose 3-4 current commitments from the list of 18 current commitments(6-28-14). Matthews said that the staff knows of the 3 likely prospects who will not be part of the 2015 signing class.
Tennessees special team commitments will not be cut loose or gray shirted. They will be part of the 2015 signing class. Doug Pointed out that these special team prospects are elite at their positions and will be an important part of the program for the next 3-4 seasons. That is important to the coaches and the program.
The bottom line is that we have 18 commitments but 3 of those commitments will look elsewhere, so we effectively have 15 commitments with a total of 24 scholarships to give out. This, we have 9 spots open.
Tennessee will hold 5 of those scholarships for specific players. They will hold scholarships for Kyle Phillips, Kahlil McKenzie, Van Jefferson, Drew Richmond, and Rico McGraw. Matthews believes that McKenzie, Phillips, and Jefferson will be Vols, but said we are in a good position to land Richmond and McGraw.
In-state recruiting is important to the Vols because the staff is able to compile a lot more information on in-state players than they are on out of state players. This helps the staff avoid making mistake in taking players with character or playing concerns. Ee took 7 players from Tennessee a year ago and we could take 1-11 in-state players in this 2015 class. Tennessee is putting out 10-12 SEC caliber players every year now and UT is in a position to turn away some players, while taking the best of that bunch.
Doug Matthews also discussed the numbers in regards to our QB and WR positions. Doug said that in the end, UT will only sign 2 WRs in this class. He said that Williams and Jefferson are the likely WRs in this class. UT is in a position to only accept the elite Wrs in the country and does not have to settle for anything less than that. UT will only sign 2 QBs in this class, Jauan Jennings and Quinten Dormady.
According to Matthews, UT will not accept the commitment of Torrance Gibson should he commit. He said that Gibson has some character concerns and that UT has told Jauan Jennings that he will be the only dual threat QB that UT signs in this class and that UT has told both Jennings and Dormady that they will be the only 2 QBs signed in this 2015 recruiting class. Jennings has been told that he will be given at least one full season to learn and prove himself at QB. After then, should he want to move to another position, he could do so.
So, UT has 9 spots left and is holding the 5 scholarships for Philips, McKenzie, Jefferson, McGraw, and Richmond. That leaves 4 spots open. Matthews said that 2 incoming freshmen from our 2014 singing class are being moved to the offensive line and one sophomore defensive lineman is being moved to the offensive line. That eliminates the need to recruit so many additional offensive linemen. The 4 remaining spots are likely to be 2 more linebackers and 2 more cornerbacks. Matthews believes that the linebackers will be Sapp and current Auburn commitment Montaviuus Atkinson and Quarte Sapp. Matthews says that the likely cornerbacks are Cameron Ordway and Justin Martin. Matthews stated that the 2015 recruiting class will likely be finished by the end of the summer.
