Tag: Tennessee volunteers football news

Twitter reacts: Tennessee hires head coach Josh Heupel

The Tennessee Volunteers have hired former UCF head coach Josh Heupel to be their head coach. Here’s how media and Twitter reacted.

The Tennessee Volunteers have hired former UCF head coach Josh Heupel to be their head coach. Heupel replaces Jeremy Pruitt, who was fired for cause after the NCAA discovered some of Tennessee’s recruiting violations.

Former UCF athletic director Danny White did not spend very long on his coaching search and pulled the trigger on Heupel. The duo reunite with a tall task ahead of them.

Tennessee has some talent, but has lost a lot of experience to the NCAA transfer portal. Georgia fans and the rest of the SEC can expect Tennessee to install a no-huddle offense with lightning speed. Tennessee’s offense should improve. The SEC has seen a recent influx of aggressive offensive schemes in recent seasons.

In 2018, Josh Heupel replaced former UCF head coach Scott Frost, who helped UCF to an unbeaten 13-0 record the year prior. Heupel finished 28-8 in his head coaching career with the Knights, including a 12-1 season in 2018.

Here’s how Twitter reacted to Tennessee’s latest head coach Josh Heupel:

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2021 recruiting: Tennessee fans, stop bragging. Georgia fans, stop panicking.

Looking at the 2021 recruiting class, Tennessee Vols fans should stop bragging and Georgia football fans need to stop panicking.

Georgia football’s 2021 recruiting class is as follows (all rankings via 247Sports)

5-star QB Brock Vandagriff: No. 2 QB, No. 12 overall

4-star OT Micah Morris: No. 9 OT, No. 61 overall

4-star ATH David Daniel: No. 4 ATH, No. 78 overall

4-star RB Lovasea Carroll: No. 7 RB, No. 117 overall

4-star SDE Jonathan Jefferson: No. 13 SDE, No. 145 overall

4-star WDE Elijah Jeudy: No. 10 WDE, No. 170 overall

3-star DT Marlin Dean: No. 28 DT, No. 447 overall

Right now, this is the nation’s 20th ranked class. Given the fact that Georgia has only seven commitments, being ranked No. 20 is just fine. It’s clear that Georgia is going for quality over quantity in this class, with its commits carrying an average rating of 94.52, which is third in the country.

For comparison purposes, Tennessee has the No. 2 class in the nation. But Jeremy Pruitt is certainly going for quantity in this class. With 23 verbals, Tennessee commits carry an average rating of 89.84. That’s the lowest in the top-five.

(Fun fact: Florida, which has the nation’s No. 7 ranked class, has an average rating of 87.41, which is the lowest in the top-10 and the second-lowest in the top-15).

Georgia commits, fans and coaches all know that Kirby Smart has plenty of time to work his magic and climb the rankings by the time the early signing period rolls around in December. Maybe enlisting a little help from current players and commits on Twitter is what it takes to expedite that process, which is something we’ve seen a lot of this month. 5-star quarterback commit Brock Vandagriff has led the surge, tweeting at a number of top players in the 2021 class recruiting them to Georgia.

It’s too early to start doing two things: Bragging and panicking.

Look at Alabama. Nick Saban currently has the nation’s No. 46 raked class for the 2021 cycle. Nobody thinks for a second that the Tide will finish outside of the top-five when all is said and done. There’s just too much time and too many elite players remaining.

And let’s stick with Tennessee for a moment. The No. 2 class is nice, but in the end I’d prefer a class of around 22 players filled with elite commits than a class consisting of 30+ players where a majority of them are three-stars.

Tennessee’s 23 commitments broken down by star rating:

  • One 5-star
  • Nine 4-stars
  • Thirteen 3-stars

Georgia has plenty of highly ranked uncommitted recruits still on its board, not to mention the ones that Kirby will try to flip to UGA.

NEXT…Georgia’s top remaining targets in the 2021 class

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Top Georgia TE picks Vols

2021 3-star TE Miles Campbell committed to Tennessee in an announcement on Twitter. Details here.

The Tennessee Volunteers receive another 3-star commitment, this time from Miles Campbell, one of the top tight ends in Georgia.

All rankings via 247Sports:

This brings the No. 2 ranked Vols 2021 recruiting class to 21 total commits with an average player rating of 0.8962, less than the 0.8992 average of the Vols 2020 No. 10 ranked recruiting class.

Campbell (6-3, 234) plays at South Paulding High School in Douglasville, Georgia, and is ranked as the No. 37 player in Georgia and the No. 20 TE overall. Campbell holds 32 offers, including one from Georgia, Florida, Miami and Auburn, but chose the Vols in an announcement on Twitter.

The Bulldogs currently sit at No. 18 in the 2021 recruiting class rankings with an average player rating of 0.954 and only seven commits. The low number of hard commits so far should tell you that Georgia coach Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs staff are only getting started — after all, Georgia is coming off of three No. 1 classes in a row.

4-star DT and Georgia recruiting target sets new commitment date

4-star DT Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins, a Georgia football recruiting target, set a new commitment date.

Last week, 2021 four-star defensive tackle Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins released a top six of Georgia, North Carolina, Florida State, South Carolina, Penn State and Tennessee.

Prior to revealing his final group, the 6-foot-5-inch, 298-pounder tweeted that he would announce his decision on Sunday, May 17.

Shortly after, he decided he needed some more time to make this life-changing decision.

Ingram-Dawkins now has a new commitment date of June 26, which is his birthday.

“I’m committing June 26th, on my birthday,” Ingram-Dawkins said on Instagram Live.

247Sports has Ingram-Dawkins as the nation’s No. 17 ranked defensive tackle and as the top player in the state of South Carolina.

Per the composite rankings, he is considered the nation’s 408th overall player.

Per 247Sports, South Carolina is viewed as the leader for Ingram-Dawkins, with Georgia close behind.

But Ingram-Dawkins said he does not pay much attention to the crystal ball on his 247Sports player profile.

The crystal ball is their way of  projecting where a recruit will land by having  a few recruiting analysts make predictions for specific players.

Georgia offered him in January and got him on campus in early-March.

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4-star DT Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins delays commitment: Considering UGA, Vols, FSU, more

4-star DT Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins has delayed his decision. He is considering Georgia football, South Carolina, UNC, Penn State, FSU and Vols.

On Monday, 2021 4-star defensive tackle Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins released a top-six of Georgia, North Carolina, Florida State, South Carolina, Penn State and Tennessee.

Shortly before revealing his final group, the 6-foot-5, 298 pounder announced that he would be announcing his decision on Sunday, May 17, at 3 p.m.

However, one day later, Ingram-Dawkins made a tweet saying that he’s decided to give his commitment “a little more thought.”

“I’ve decided to give my commitment a little more thought before making it on Sunday!!,” he said in a Tweet. “This is a life-changing decision that is very important to me!!”

247Sports has Ingram-Dawkins as the nation’s No. 17 ranked defensive tackle and as the top player in the state of South Carolina.

According to SportsTalkSC, Ingram-Dawkins will wait roughly 2-3 weeks.

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Father of former Georgia OL Cade Mays sues UGA over severed finger

Cade Mays’ dad is suing UGA over a severed finger he suffered during a recruiting visit. Now, Mays is transferring to the Tennessee Vols.

Georgia Bulldog offensive lineman Cade Mays is transferring to Tennessee in a surprising move this week, according a report Wednesday by ESPN. Mays is joining his brother Cooper in Knoxville. Mays has a path to immediate eligibility thanks to a lawsuit that’s suing UGA and the chair manufacturer over his father’s severed finger.

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Mays should be allowed to join his brother without sitting out a season, but this lawsuit is being filed very late in the process. Mays’ father severed off a portion of his finger on a fold-up chair on a recruiting visit in 2017.

Mays went on to commit to UGA following the incident, where former UGA offensive line coach Sam Pittman picked up the severed finger and immediately put it on ice. Now, Pittman is tabbed as the head coach at Arkansas. Pittman’s departure is another likely reason for Mays’ transfer. The lawsuit was filed shortly after Pittman left.

Mays’ father is now being represented by attorney Tom Mars, who has experience with NCAA eligibility cases. The NCAA is impossible to predict, so we shall see if they grant the waiver. Mars is already getting into it with UGA’s administration and respected UGA sportswriter Radi Nabulsi:

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