Recruiting Forum Football Talk [RIP 9.3.2019]

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#147,278
#147,278
HoleInTheRoof said:
Eight already?

I disagree.

A lot of guys went undrafted and signed a standard non guaranteed rookie tryout deal. Odds are very likely some of them never make an NFL practice squad, let alone a roster.
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I didn't say drafted, but you're not wrong. I think only 3 (so far) have been drafted from that class. Kelly, Kamara, and Khalil
UpstateVol613 said:
Not true. Name some offensive lineman he put in the NFL during his tenure? (You can’t count Khalil McKenzie) Also his recruiting tailed off when he could no longer sell Hope and early playing time. Guarantee his last 2 classes look very different than that one.
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You're not wrong, but also his last two classes makeup most of our starters going into this season as well.
 
#147,279
#147,279
ChattaTNVol said:
I've seen some people talking about the 4th ranked 2015 recruiting class we signed and figured I'd put together a best effort cheat sheet on what happened to those guys.

View attachment 203664
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That class, as a whole, didn't amount to crap for Tennessee. I couldn't care less how many were UDFAs. One of the worst classes in UT history.
 
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#147,280
#147,280
Agreed, who gives a s*** about NFL performance and who got drafted or who got contracts.

I only care what they do while here in Orange & White. Butch's best class is the 2013 class, at least they won 3 bowl games and went 30-21 with 7 of those losses in year 1.

Dobbs, JRM, Vereen, Sutton, Vickers, Kendrick, Wiesman, Daniel... further proof stars don't matter, just as many NFL players from that class who are actively on NFL rosters.
 
#147,282
#147,282
VolunteerVandiver said:
That class, as a whole, didn't amount to crap for Tennessee. I couldn't care less how many were UDFAs. One of the worst classes in UT history.
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That’s not even a logical stance.

Alvin Kamara, John Kelly, Khalil McKenzie, and Kyle Phillips all played some really high level football here.

Jennings & D. Taylor are going to be two of our most productive players this year.

Jack Jones, Chance Hall, Shy Tutle, looked to be very good players before injury. ( bad luck)

Then you have players like Venzel, Preston, Townsend, Richmond, has they finished their careers at Tennessee would’ve contributed here.

Was it a great class? No. But it’s not even close to one of the worst in Tennessee History.
 
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#147,284
#147,284
HankHill said:
That’s not even a logical stance.

Alvin Kamara, John Kelly, Khalil McKenzie, and Kyle Phillips all played some really high level football here.

Jennings & D. Taylor are going to be two of our most productive players this year.

Jack Jones, Chance Hall, Shy Tutle, looked to be very good players before injury. ( bad luck)

Then you have players like Venzel, Preston, Townsend, Richmond, has they finished their careers at Tennessee would’ve contributed here.

Was it a great class? No. But it’s not even close to one of the worst in Tennessee History.
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Kamara, Kelly, and Jennings were the only players that played "high-level football."

In terms of wins and losses, this has been one of the worst classes in Tennessee history. To have had 30 players, that class sucked a**.
 
#147,285
#147,285
millst987 said:
I agree on it being super challenging to recruit for UT football right now. I wouldn’t want the job to be honest. What are we selling these kids, a chance to play at UT? That’s a joke for most of these youngsters, especially the ones with offers from SEC teams with recent success. We are having to sell these kids on coaching ability, and the ability to develop NFL players. I really believe Pruitt has to somehow find a way to get this team to 8-9 wins this fall for us to build recruiting momentum. That’s a tall task with this limited roster, but it’s necessary imo for us to turn this ship around.
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I agree with everything you say except I would add “quickly” at the end: i.e., “to turn this ship around quickly.”

Pruitt can turn this around even if he doesn’t win 8-9 this year. Just will take a little longer.

If we as fans bail on him if he wins 7 ballgames then there is no hope for Tennessee. It would confirm what I am sure is a big talking point in negative recruiting against Tennessee: don’t go there because the expectations are too high and Pruitt won’t last for the three or four years you will be in college.
 
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#147,286
#147,286
On the topic of worst classes ever. Dooleys 2011 class was absolute mierda. Which was really unfortunate because his 2010 class was one of our best classes in recent memory. If that class is halfway decent his tenure is probably different here.
 
#147,288
#147,288
Looking back at Jones’s recruiting classes, they all seem to include some contributors. The problem with those classes is that a full 1/2 to 2/3 of each one is made up of guys that made no impact whatsoever while at UT. All that is exacerbated by the fact that Jones and staff seemed to be pretty atrocious at developing the potential of the top 1/3 to 1/2 of those classes.

As far as worst classes at UT, I can’t think of one much worse than Fulmer’s final class.
 
#147,289
#147,289
You need close to 50% from classes I think to be at a high level year in and year out.

Not that 50% have to be world beaters, but you need close to half the class earning and playing at a fairly good level. Somewhere between 8-12 guys in every class should be contributing on the field, even if it's starting on special teams and only playing sparingly on offense or defense.
 
#147,291
#147,291
MoCo_Vol said:
You need close to 50% from classes I think to be at a high level year in and year out.

Not that 50% have to be world beaters, but you need close to half the class earning and playing at a fairly good level. Somewhere between 8-12 guys in every class should be contributing on the field, even if it's starting on special teams and only playing sparingly on offense or defense.
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Nobody bats a thousand in every class, not even Bama. But failing to develop that 50% while getting absolutely nothing, not even depth, from the other 50% is a recipe for disaster.
 
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#147,296
#147,296
HankHill said:
Just having Kamara in the class alone makes it not one of the worst in history. Dude is one of the best players to ever step on this campus.
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I agree saying worse is hyperbole at its best. I think Butch was a good recruiter but when his guys on his staff he trusted for years started changing then the lack of development is what killed his chances here. He wasn’t ready for a big SEC job.
 
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#147,297
#147,297
JacketVol said:
I agree saying worse is hyperbole at its best. I think Butch was a good recruiter but when his guys on his staff he trusted for years started changing then the lack of development is what killed his chances here. He wasn’t ready for a big SEC job.
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His first few classes were good enough to win pretty big here. We could’ve/should’ve won 10 games a year. Which is why we went 9-4 twice and blew multiple games along the way.

If you give a better coach those rosters we have two of the best years in recent memory honestly.
 
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#147,298
#147,298
One of the other things I looked at yesterday in regards to the reaction of some to the draft this year was how many players SEC teams had on the board at NFL DraftTracker.com. We actually only had 2 players listed but our peers in the conference didn’t necessarily have all their graduating/departing players listed either. One of the “excuses” we try to avoid is the claim that we are a young team but we were a young team last year and we were not the only one. One of the benefits of a young team is loads and loads of returning production. A lot of our peers lost a lot of impact players and contributors. Most don’t have the recruiting chops to reload like a Georgia or Alabama. 2015 for us was a pretty young team and with all the returning production we had for 2016 we were preseason darlings.

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However, in the aftermath of the close losses to that 2015 season, the best we’d had in many a year, Jones, presumably at the behest of his “veteran” players, fired his strength and conditioning staff, and surrendered control and responsibility of the football program. One of the questions some had about Jones when he was first hired was would he be able to manage the egos of the blue chip players he would need to recruit in the SEC. He had had a good bit of success both in recruiting and on the field in much more forgiving stints at both CMU and Cincinnati but this was going to be different in a lot of ways even if he didn’t want to admit it. In the most challenging moments of his tenure here he demonstrated that he was literally not man enough for the job. Everything pretty much imploded from there.

We were a young team last year and will likely be even more of a veteran team in 2020 than this year. I am almost certain Pruitt has the cojones to man up when and if the going gets tough. jmo.

ScreenHunter 81.png
 
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#147,300
#147,300
MrVolton said:
Looking back at Jones’s recruiting classes, they all seem to include some contributors. The problem with those classes is that a full 1/2 to 2/3 of each one is made up of guys that made no impact whatsoever while at UT. All that is exacerbated by the fact that Jones and staff seemed to be pretty atrocious at developing the potential of the top 1/3 to 1/2 of those classes.

As far as worst classes at UT, I can’t think of one much worse than Fulmer’s final class.
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The other thing I have learned looking back is not to get too excited about the individual players. You never truly know which ones will pan out and it’s the volume that counts. I followed individual player recruitments in those classes way more closely than I care to admit. I was entertained, and I guess there’s something to be said for that. But boy on balance it was a waste of time.
 
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