tOfficial '2015 Tennessee Volunteers' Football Thread

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Three SEC teams in college football New Year's Six bowl projections - ESPN

ESPN's Brad Edwards Predicts Tennessee to play Baylor in the Sugar Bowl.

 

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Has Butch Jones become college football's best program-seller?

Brick-by-brick.

Tired of hearing Butch Jones’ schtick yet?

It’s not going anywhere.

Sans national champion Ohio State and the work Urban Meyer is doing with the Buckeyes, no program in the country has more momentum than Tennessee, everyone’s darling Eastern Division sleeper pick heading into the 2015 season thanks to arguably the SEC’s top defensive line and a rising star at quarterback.

Since his arrival prior to the start of the 2013 season, Jones has coached with vigor and given the Vols a crash course on the importance of discipline and accountability, similar to Nick Saban’s ‘process’ at Alabama.

“You’re either a fountain, or a drain,” Jones says in reference to what he calls energy vampires. “We want fountains.”

Moreover, Jones has rebuilt Tennessee into a potential power through intense recruiting efforts, bringing in impressive classes ranked 24th, 7th, and 4th nationally over the last three seasons. Like most teams, the Vols begin to scout players with what Jones calls a ‘recruiting profile’ — information put together by members of his staff that determines an athlete’s fit into the success of Tennessee football.

The Vols have locked down the state, signing the highest-rated three prospects in Tennessee each of the last two cycles. Several were immediate-impact guys including Jalen Hurd and Derek Barnett — cornerstones for future success. It often takes a five-star or two to attract others, no matter the program prestige, and Jones has utilized player-to-player recruiting to his advantage.

The blueprint has worked for several in the SEC including most recently South Carolina during the Gamecocks’ three consecutive 11-win seasons. Steve Spurrier inherited a historically mediocre program in 2005 that rarely welcomed nationally-relevant classes until Stephon Gilmore kicked off a multi-year flurry of high-profile, in-state signings in 2009.

“Our players were our greatest ambassadors that we had in our football program (during the recruiting season),” Jones said on signing day. “When prospective student-athletes came on campus, they sold the vision, the excitement and the energy that we have here in Knoxville.”

On the field, it’s evident Tennessee is turning the corner.

Coming off their first bowl victory since 2007 with the nation’s youngest team last fall, the Vols return championship-level personnel — SEC-leading 18 starters overall — in the necessary areas that define competitive teams. Jones believes he’s the guy who can return Tennessee football to the respected brand the Vols flexed in the 1990s and early 2000s, a level we saw glimpses of last season during an impressive season-ending stretch of 37 points per game over the final five contests.

Jones turned down an opportunity at Michigan in December, one many thought would be enough to lure him away from the Power T, but it wasn’t to be. How can Jones, a facilitator of change, sell incoming players on a vision if he’s looking elsewhere? He has acquired the necessary pieces and is fitting them together in a wide-open Eastern Division this fall.

Considering the buzz surrounding Tennessee football, is Jones college football’s best salesman?

 

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Kiper looks forward at UT football season

 

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http://wp.me/p14QTT-1svi

Defensive ends Derek Barnett and Kyle Phillips, defensive tackle Danny O’Brien, middle linebacker Darrin Kirkland Jr. and wide receiver Jason Croom are all expected to be out of action this spring, Jones announced on Friday. In addition to that list, Jones suggested tight end Alex Ellis could also be out for the spring.

Croom injured his knee during bowl practices leading up to Tennessee’s match-up with Iowa. Ellis, a senior, was recently awarded a scholarship by Tennessee.

To further deplete the available depth in the spring, Jones also listed a handful of players that could be limited at best this spring. Wide receiver Marquez North, running back Jalen Hurd, offensive lineman Chance Hall, defensive end Corey Vereen, defensive lineman Charles Mosley, linebacker Dillon Bates and cornerback Rashaan Gaulden were those mentioned as limited this spring by the head coach.

North played in 10 games last season and missed playing time due to a shoulder injury. Hurd was Tennessee’s leading rusher in 2014 with 899 yards and five touchdowns.

 

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http://tennessee.247sports.com/Bolt/Vols-SEC-title-odds-released-35678029

Alabama (+260) had far and away the best odds to win the league, followed by Auburn (+400) and Georgia (+400) and Ole Miss (+420).

There’s a wide gap to the next team on the list — Tennessee (+900). The Vols are followed by LSU (+1000), Arkansas (+1200) and Missouri (+1300).

Here’s a full list of the site’s SEC championship odds.

5DIMES’ SEC TITLE ODDS
1. Alabama: +260
t2. Auburn: +400
t2. Georgia: +400
4. Ole Miss: +420
5. Tennessee: +900
6. LSU: +1000
7. Arkansas: +1200
8. Missouri: +1300
t9. Mississippi State: +1500
t9. Texas A&M: +1500
t11. South Carolina: +2500
t11. Florida: +2500
13. Kentucky: +7500
14. Vanderbilt: +10000

 

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http://tennessee.247sports.com/Bolt/BREAKING-Vols-Justin-King-parting-ways-35736913

 

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NCAAF SEC pre-spring position rankings: Defensive line - ESPN

3. Tennessee: In Derek Barnett and Curt Maggitt, you’re looking at two of the league’s top five pass-rushers last season. So it’s safe to say that the Vols are pretty well set up front. If the 2015 signing class pays off and Kahlil McKenzie and Shy Tuttle make an impact, even better for coach Butch Jones.

 

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Butch Jones visits Nashville to talk quarterbacks, preseason hype | WKRN News 2

After signing autographs and taking pictures, Jones spoke to News 2 about the quarterback situation and preseason expectations.

Last season, Jones called the quarterback situation “an open competition.”

This year, he already has his man.
Butch Jones in Nashville, March 3Butch Jones and a fan in Nashville on March 3, 2015.

“Josh Dobbs is our starting quarterback make no mistake about it,” he said. “But again, it’s little different nuances in spring in that we are going to have a new number two and a new number three and that’s going to be a true freshman I can promise you that.”

Former Blackman star Jauan Jennings, Quinten Dormandy and Sheriron Jones are all expected to compete for the back-up quarterback roles.

 

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Gathered this from another site and thought it was interesting:

"It’s no secret that Butch Jones is recruiting a higher caliber of talent to Tennessee than the previous coaching staff. While that is no doubt a good thing for Vols fans, if Tennessee wants to challenge for the SEC title once again, what’s more important is how the talent at Tennessee compares with other SEC schools - particularly in the SEC East. Using Rivals recruiting ratings, I take a look at the “average” player in each SEC school’s recruiting class since 2010 and see how Tennessee stacks up.

Average Player Point Value (APPV)

Rivals rates each player and assigns them a point value based on their rating, adding bonus points if the player is in the Rivals 250. The higher a player is rated, the more points that player is assigned. To calculate what I will refer to as the Average Player Point Value (APPV) for each signing class, I take the point values of every player in the signing class and simply calculate the mean value for that class. Using APPV allows for an equal comparison across all signing classes, regardless of the number of signees in each class and also has a more understandable meaning than total points since it is on the same scale as an individual recruit.

Tennessee vs the SEC

Looking at Tennessee’s APPV compared to the SEC average from 2010 to 2015, the Butch Jones Era is immediately clear. Every signing class under Derek Dooley was worse than the last, with the worst of them coming in the transition class of 2013. This drop is commonplace for signing classes in the midst of a coaching change. However, once Butch Jones had a full year to recruit, Tennessee’s 2014 APPV skyrocketed well above the SEC average and in 2015 pulled even further ahead.

The talent gap between the SEC East and SEC West is very apparent. While the average SEC West APPV is approaching the level of a 4 star recruit, the SEC East consistently hovers around, and in 2015 dipped below, the minimum APPV level of a 3 star recruit. All of this is great news for Tennessee fans, as Butch Jones has elevated the APPV of Tennessee, in back to back years, to well over that of not only the SEC East average, but that of the much more talent laden SEC West as well."

SEC East

Diving into the SEC East, Tennessee’s 2015 class has the highest APPV in the division and second highest in the SEC behind only Alabama. This is the first time since 2002, when Rivals began publishing their ratings, that Tennessee has garnered the highest APPV in the SEC East. Before 2013, APPV in the East was dominated by Florida, who has been in a steady decline for 6 years now. Since 2010, Florida’s APPV has almost without exception, given a slight increase from 2011 to 2012, been worse than the year before. While the large drop from 2014 to 2015 in Florida’s APPV was most likely exacerbated due to the coaching transition (similar to what Tennessee experienced in 2013), it’s interesting to note that Florida’s drop was much more significant than the one Tennessee experienced.

Looking at the other trends in the East, Missouri is consistently in the bottom tier of the classes, floating with the likes of Vanderbilt and Kentucky. This speaks volumes about the coaching ability of Gary Pinkel and his staff. Having already won back to back SEC East titles, if Missouri continues to increase their APPV, they have the potential to be a very difficult team to beat in the coming years.

SEC West

In the SEC West, there is Alabama… and then everyone else. Nick Saban and crew have earned the highest APPV in the SEC every year since 2011 and it’s not even close, dethroning Florida who held the title from 2006 to 2010. LSU, Auburn, and Texas A&M, since they entered the SEC in 2012, contest for second place in the West from year to year.

Ole Miss briefly jumped into the top tier of the SEC West in 2013. Hugh Freeze signed three 5 star players in that class but that looks to be an exception rather than the rule as his past two classes have not seen anywhere near the same level of APPV.

2015 SEC Class Clusters

Hierarchical clustering is method used to find the natural divisions in a range of numbers, in our case the APPVs of the SEC. Starting with all the APPVs grouped into one, it breaks apart the group into clusters that have the biggest differences between them. The clusters continue going from two clusters to three, all the way down to as many clusters as there are teams with each team being its own cluster.

We use this method to find the natural divisions within the 2015 SEC APPVs. For example, if you were going to divide the SEC into two groups you would get Alabama, Tennessee, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, and Texas A&M in one group and then the rest of the SEC in the other. If you were to divide the SEC into three groups, Alabama breaks off into a cluster of their own leaving the other two clusters otherwise unchanged. The further you go down the tree, the more similar each team is to its neighbor. The teams are ordered left to right in their overall APPV for 2015.

Tennessee’s APPV is the 2nd highest in the SEC, clustering closest with Auburn. Georgia, LSU, and Texas A&M follow closely behind. Tennessee and Georgia are the only SEC East teams to be in the top half of the SEC. In fact, 5 of the bottom 6 in the SEC are members of the SEC East, with Arkansas being the only SEC West team not in the top 8.

Tennessee is back on top of SEC East recruiting for the first time in over a decade. While much of the East is in recruiting decay, in the two full recruiting cycles that Butch Jones has been at Tennessee, he has stacked back to back top 5 classes. Tennessee’s 2015 class was even better than its 2014 legacy class based on APPV. This trend very well may continue into the 2016 class with already 3 commitments from players in the Rivals 100, including Austin Kendall the number 3 pro-style QB and 27th overall player in the nation.

Tennessee’s recruiting is peaking while other rival SEC East schools are in decline. Having taken back the reigns of SEC East talent, if Butch Jones can translate his recruiting success to on the field production, Tennessee could be back in the SEC title game sooner rather than later."

 

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Tennessee defensive back survives scary car crash

 

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Pretty amazing that nobody was seriously hurt.

 

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They call him Mister Dobbs.

 

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Justin King transferring from Tennessee to UTC | Local News | Times Free Press

 

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Justin King transferring from Tennessee to UTC | Local News | Times Free Press

"'Noogies"

 

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Spring gallery 3-24-15 photos

 

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Vols OL Coleman Thomas arrested on felony theft charge | CollegeFootballTalk

 

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VolQuest.com - Quick HiTs: 'Circle of Life' returns with pads

The first day in full pads marked the return of perhaps Butch Jones' favorite practice drill: the 'Circle of Life' Saturday morning on Haslam Field.

Tennessee, working through its third of 15 spring practices, rolled quickly into the man-on-man physical challenge.

There were a handful of matchups, but a few noteworthy competitions provided some highlights. Brett Kendrick, who's opened camp with a very solid week, had a resounding win in the circle, as did Josh Malone, who easily sent freshman defensive back Stephen Griffin backpedaling. Charles Mosley battled Mack Crowder, and while it was even early it appeared that Mosley might have secured the win. Mosley remains working with the defense.

Freshman offensive lineman Jack Jones, who also has worked some punt shield, got in some work deep-snapping on field goals and extra points.

The Vols logged heavy special teams work early, with Trevor Daniel easily outworking George Bullock in punting. Bullock, to his credit, has been staying late from practice to work on drops for his punts. In that same session, Tennessee looked at Von Pearson, Alvin Kamara, Alton 'Pig' Howard, Josh Malone and Evan Berry caught punts, as didMalik Foreman.

While coaches praised the offensive tempo in the early going, they were less than pleased on defense. However, Shy Tuttle continues to be a force on the defensive interior. Tuttle is growing in consistency early on, but he shows up in plays each practice. Definitely impressing.

Jakob Johnson, as we noted Thursday and then reported in the War Room that night, remains out of practice following sinus surgery.

Thus far, Tennessee has mitigated its need for green, non-contact jerseys. Only Jalen Hurd and Marquez North donned the green.

Josh Dobbs has opened camp with a solid week; he's throwing the ball with some more accuracy on a more frequent basis. Coaches want that continued development in consistency. Dobbs also slipped on a glove for his left, non-throwing hand.

The Vols, with sunshine but chilly temperatures, had an impressive early turnout of visitors for their third junior day of the spring.

Tennessee hosted an impressive group of visitors, and it started with a trio of instate 4-star players.

Nashville linebacker Daniel Bituli was on campus today, as well as Brentwood offensive lineman Bryce Mathews.

Ronatavius Groves was a visitor today as well and the Vols seem to have some nice momentum there. They continue to be in good shape with Bituli and Mathews as well.

The instate group also included some 2017 standouts, with Oak Ridge wide receiver Tee Higgins the headliner.

Also, a few out of state standouts made their way to Tennessee as four-star wideout Donnie Corley is in Knoxville as well as Charlotte offensive lineman Taleni Suhren.

 

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www.timesfreepress.com/news/sports/college/story/2015/mar/31/vols-mcdowell-taking-ideal-development-path/296104/

McDowell's 14 tackles on special teams last season topped Reeves-Maybin's team-leading mark of 11 in 2013.

"Jalen has been a great mentor to Cortez," Jones said, "and they kind of laugh how they're following the same transition."

"He tries to call me his duo, but it's all good," McDowell said with a laugh."It's how we just make fun of each other. It's all fun. We love to compete. It's like two brothers going at it and trying to get at it."

Of course, Reeves-Maybin will be the one keeping McDowell from expanding his role to Tennessee's defense, but that's OK for the rising sophomore.

"Whatever I can do to help everybody," he said, "that's all I'm looking for."

Reeves-Maybin certainly believes McDowell has a bright future.

"I think Cortez is going to be really good," he said. "He's kind of the same-built player as me. He's a little faster than me actually, but don't tell him I said that. He's going to definitely be a good player. He's going to be able to make an impact on the game. He's a playmaker."

 

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