Vol Football's recruiting woes

So far the Josh Heupel tenure hasn’t gotten off to a hot start recruiting wise, they have missed on 3 straight QB prospects in Ty Simpson, Sam Horn, and legacy player Kaden Martin. But I would suggest Vol fans do not let this discourage them. Josh Heupel has only been on the job for two months, and it will take some time to grow relationships with the players we are recruiting. The last coaching staff didn’t do a great job at recruiting these players either. Jeremy Pruitt did not necessarily prioritize Sam Horn and I'm not sure he did Kaden Martin that much either, so we were already a little bit behind there. As far as Simpson goes, you can’t blame a kid for seeing all of the championships Alabama has won and wanting to be a part of that.

Now, let’s say recruiting doesn’t get much better, what then? Well. recruiting high profile talent hasn’t necessarily worked out well for Tennessee Football. The 2020 Tennessee football recruiting class was a top 10 class in the country, and that didn’t necessarily turn into a lot of wins. Maybe Heupel would be better suited to follow the Rick Barnes recruiting strategy of starting off with a few lower ranked guys to build your culture, develop them, hope you find a diamond in the rough, and then land some of the higher ranked recruits once you establish a culture and a respectful program.

So, while I can understand there being worries, since recruiting hasn’t been a strong point of Heupel’s I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt here.

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