War Room — Vols enter critical recruiting month, summer workouts start and more
We begin this edition of the War Room as we always do. The War Room is a collective effort of notes and news gathered throughout the week by the Volquest staff. And now, it’s on with the news.
It’s go time for the Tennessee football team who are all rolling back into Knoxville to start their summer off-season work. The 60 days or so of work is key to the development of this team in a variety of areas including the secondary which is undergoing a complete overhaul.
But it’s really key everywhere as this team looks for a left guard and for development at the running back position. It’s certainly an important three months for development and conditioning ahead of fall camp which will start on July 31st. (NCAA rules say you can start one month before kickoff). That’s one of the reasons coaches like Thursday night season openers. Because NC State is opening on a Thursday night they will open fall camp two days before Tennessee.
The rest of the newcomers have arrived. Bennett Warren arrived in solid shape and Jeremias Heard is huge. Tennessee’s freshman class of offensive linemen won’t be counted on or needed to be counted on this fall, but their impact in 2025 is a must which is why the next 12 months is critical for them in their development and it’s critical to the program.
With six seniors and five of them being inside guys if you count Dayne Davis as one of them, the development of the interior of the offensive line is key moving forward.
One freshman who is full go in terms of work with the team is Kaleb Beasley. Beasley has been putting in the work in the weight room and with the nutritionist the last couple of months and has put on almost 20 pounds as he is tipping the scales at 201.
Meanwhile in Destin, big picture items are on center stage as this is a different set of meetings than in other years with the settlement of the House case and revenue sharing on the horizon. Expenses are on the rise meaning revenue must increase and some cost cutting may need to take place. That’s why there is all the talk about cutting football roster sizes. It’s why there’s also talk of logo’s on playing surfaces as well.
Solutions aren’t going to come out of the meetings this week, but as someone told us, the discussions have finally been real. yhis is a really important time with key decisions looming for the future of the game.
What that future looks like is unclear (it’s not going away and it’s not in huge trouble), but it’s different which is why the discussions have been about much bigger issues instead of simple rule changes which is why things like roster size in football have been a huge topic this week.
One item that everyone believes will pass is a mandated injury report for SEC teams. The Big 10 already does one but it’s released just a couple of hours prior to kickoff. Details of how one would work in the SEC is unclear. But it’s pretty clear the league brass want one and it appears it’s going to happen.
Obviously, one of the reasons for an injury report is due to somewhat recently legalized sports gambling. Again details of when it would be released, how specific and the repercussions for falsifying anything are unclear at this point.
We mentioned this in the story on Thursday but in mid-June start time windows for all SEC games will be announced. There will be essentially two day windows and a night window along with a flex option. So in June fans will know for the most part whether a game is going to be a day game or a night game which obviously helps with fans being able to plan travel.
The feeling is that the marquee games will be night games, so with the CBS 3:30 window gone there will be more marquee night games in the SEC.
One other note on the SEC spring meetings. Football coaches have expressed concern about the timing of the meetings. For years, the last week of May was a dead time for college football coaches, but in today’s recruiting calendar it is anything but a dead time before of camps, official visits and unofficial visits.
The SEC AD’s have meetings in the winter and some football coaches have expressed a desire to have their meetings at that time, which would be after the season is over but during a dead time in recruiting.
Following the conclusion of the home baseball schedule, crews will obviously start work on the major facelift that is coming to Lindsey Nelson Stadium. As the project sits on the launch pad, Neyland Stadium renovations remain in their six-day-a-week schedule. The last sections of the expansion for the south concourse are ready to be concreted.
The elevator shaft at Gate Four continues to go up and the enclosing of the south concourse where it has been expanded is underway. Also, blocks have been delivered to be installed for the creation of the founders suites. Crews also continue to work on the renovated concession and bathroom areas on the second level of the north end. Essentially there is work being done throughout the stadium. Here are a couple of updated pictures of the progress.
The new gate 4 from an east side angle. you can see the block walls that are going up for the south concourse.
This is a view of the new gate 4 and the south end from the G-10 garage
Recruiting
Tennessee will host no official visitors this weekend before they host a handful next weekend. The big two weekends will be the weekend of the 14th and 21st with the Vols slated to host nearly 50 prospects as of now. We are sure some of those numbers will change, but, this is a backloaded month for Heupel and Company.
David Sanders continues to say all the right things and we feel like Tennessee is in a phenomenal spot as the calendar turns to June tomorrow, but the Vols will have to survive all of these official visits this month. The fact that his parents are having him drive through the mountains to get a feel for what it would be like to be a player at Tennessee should tell anyone who is following his recruitment how serious of a contender Tennessee truly is. He is at Clemson this weekend and so obviously their track record of getting kids to jump in the boat on this massive weekend for the Tigers and subsequently shut it down is one thing you have to watch but we would be surprised if Sanders or his family were pressured into anything.
One of the best looking prospects at the On3 elite series event in Nashville was Mariyon Dye. Tennessee and Georgia have the most momentum for him with Ohio State and Purdue right behind them. He will visit Tennessee officially on the weekend of the 21st, which means the Vols will be the last team he will see.
New Jersey lineman Jaelyne Matthews will visit Rutgers this weekend and is also set to officially visit Miami, Tennessee and Ole Miss this month. We still continue to feel like Tennessee has done a tremendous job with Matthews but with visits, anything can happen.
Georgia wide receiver Travis Smith, clearly likes Tennessee. In fact, we believe if he lived in any other state, that Tennessee would be the clear cut leader. Georgia has done a very good job of using their influence in and around Atlanta to put pressure on Smith to stay in state. He officially visits Athens this weekend and it will be interesting to hear his take and tone coming out of that visit. Tennessee will get the last visit with Smith on the 21st and will need to knock the visit out of the park before his July 13th announcement.
A name we haven’t talked a whole lot about, but is worth watching in the month of June is Bartlett linebacker Austin Howard. Tennessee was on him early, but did not offer which allowed teams like Vanderbilt to pull the trigger earlier and he committed to a Commodores back in April. It is not a laydown that he would flip to Tennessee, but we expect him in for a visit on the 14th.
Jefferson County lineman Nic Moore is at West Virginia this weekend and he will take his visits before visiting Tennessee for the final weekend on the 21st. He will visit Clemson on June 3rd and it will be interesting to see if the Tigers pull the trigger and offer him. Tennessee has a ton of momentum coming out of last weekend with Moore and we expect the Vols to keep the hammer down in their pursuit of him.
Tennessee has continued to make an impression on four-star CB Onis Konanbanny, and he named the Vols his leader coming out of 865 Live. This one will not be a lay down with official visits coming up, but the Vols are positioned well heading into a busy month of June, in part because of a long-standing relationship with the staff. He reiterates a certain comfort level being at Tennessee.
Elsewhere at corner, Tennessee impressed in-state corner Donovan Starr during his first visit. An official visit is not yet on the books for June, but it could be soon. Starr will be at Clemson this weekend, and the Tigers are going to press, so that will be something at least worth keeping an eye on.
Elsewhere in the secondary, we’ve mentioned multiple times that Tennessee is high on Timothy Merritt. That interest is clearly mutual, as the touted prospect made it clear to us the Vols are a serious competitor to pull him out of the Yellow Hammer state. His strong relationships with Tim Banks and Coach Chop has made the Vols a serious contender heading into a summertime decision.
Darrion Smith maintains Tennessee is high on his list, and he had an excellent time at 865 Live, but his decision timeline is something we are continuing to watch. He will take officials to Ohio State and Maryland in June, and they are undoubtedly Tennessee’s biggest competitors, but he doesn’t plan to return to Knoxville until the fall for a game.
Christian Gass continues to be a versatile player the Vols staff likes, and his interest is mutual. He will be at Florida this weekend, and the Gators appear to be Tennessee’s biggest competitor at this stage. He will be in town at the end of the month, and the Vols are deep in the recruitment of the four-star LB heading into a busy month.
Justin Baker is one that probably doesn’t get enough credit for his part in Tennessee’s class. The Vols staff covets the long-time commitment, and he has been a frequent visitor to campus. He’s also been more active as a peer recruiter with Shekai Mills-Knight as the duo has hit it off more and more of late. The conversation of how they could complement each other in Tennessee’s backfield has been a hot topic.
Mills-Knight will start a full month of trips beginning this weekend, and we believe the rubber will meet the road for a decision in July, making this month that much more important. Tennessee only helps its chances by getting him back to campus last week, as they build momentum toward his upcoming official visit.
Hoops
Tennessee’s coaching staff finally got to sit back and relax after bringing the seemingly endless Chaz Lanier recruitment to a successful close last Friday.
Lanier was a priority target for Tennessee from the moment he entered the portal from North Florida and the Rick Barnes and his staff did a great job of bringing this one home through plenty of twists and turns.
The most interesting part of this whole deal—at least for many—is that it seems pretty clear that Lanier took a lower (but competitive) NIL offer to pick Tennessee over Kentucky.
That says tons about the reputation this staff and program have built on several fronts. In most cases players who have had great success at a lower level are looking for some basic things when they move up (assuming NIL offers are competitive); they want to win at a high level, they want to play in the NCAA Tournament and get the exposure that comes from being on a successful team, and they want to get coached up and get better.
After the Dalton Knecht experience, there is simply no program in the country that has a better blue print to show transfers who are moving up.
Lanier and the rest of the Vols’ new additions—including the lone high school signee Bishop Boswell—will start drifting onto campus and moving in over the next week.
Igor Milicic has already been in Knoxville but he will return home to play for his national team for part of the summer.
Felix Okparo has also already arrived on campus.
With Lanier in the boat Tennessee still has two open scholarships to use.
The guess is that they are done in the transfer portal. I think ideally this summer while on the road Tennessee would probably like to find a developmental-type prospect who could potentially re-classify and enroll in the fall.
A ‘Tobe Awaka’ type find in July would probably be perfect, but those hidden gems aren’t easy to uncover.
With the ease of player movement these days and players seeming to be less willing to sit than ever, hitting the summer with a couple of open roster spots is probably going to be increasingly common.
The post War Room — Vols enter critical recruiting month, summer workouts start and more appeared first on On3.
