Recruiting Thursday: Silence is Golden

by David Hooper on Sep 24, 2009 10:00 AM EDT in Tennessee Volunteers Recruiting

The recruiting report was delayed this week because of a homework binge and an exam. With real life temporarily out of the way, this week's Recruiting Tuesday is on Thursday. Fortunately, this delay is actually of some use.

No News Is

Things are quiet at the moment on recruiting, in large part due to Tennessee playing a road game last weekend. We weren't hosting anybody (official or unofficial), so the chimera didn't have an opportunity to do that voodoo that they do so well. So, at the moment, Tennessee sits at #3 on Scout's list, #4 on Rivals, and unknown in ESPNU's rankings. (ESPN is only listing their top 10, and the list hasn't been updated since August 7. It's a class that is mostly well-balanced, but could use more offensive linemen and linebackers to round things out. A second quarterback isn't out of the question, but is also not totally necessary either.

So, the board remains unchanged:

View Rocky Top Talk Tennessee Volunteers Recruiting Big Board 2010 in a larger map

The flipside of this last weekend is that we haven't seen any action from <i>Florida's</i> side of the house. There's not really a whole lot that can be read into that without further information, but there is one obvious detail that stands out: that the Florida-Tennessee weekend wasn't sufficient to cause anybody to commit to the Gators on its own. Unlike the UCLA loss, where three players left Knoxville knowing they would be Vols, none of the Florida players had enough of a certainty to pull the trigger. That leaves all of them in play (to varying degrees) and implies that they still need a little more time or information before making their final choice.

Forward

With the Ohio Bobcats coming up, the list is a little shorter than the UCLA game. There is some uncertainty amongst the recruitniks as to who exactly is coming, but the biggest name coming into town appears to be Marcus Lattimore.

Lattimore is a 5-star running back and is the Rivals #2 and the Scout #1 at that position. He is also a teammate of new Vols commits Brandon Willis and Corey Miller. (Seriously, just how much projected talent does James F Byrnes have in Duncan, South Carolina?) Ohio is a good weekend for him to come, as the running backs will be absolutely essential in Tennessee's game plan and should show him what UT can do with bruising power backs. The recruiting sites don't list Tennessee as a serious possibility for Lattimore at the moment, but neither does anybody have a good handle on the effect of his teammates' commits to Tennessee. At the moment, everybody is in wait-and-see mode.

While Lattimore may be the biggest name in terms of recruiting obsession, the only confirmed official visitor is David Mahoney, a 6'-2", 295-pound JUCO defensive tackle from the L.A. out west. He should graduate in December, so he'll likely be in the spring camp of whichever school he ends up attending. He is, in a word, fast - 11.4 in the 100 meters at 300 pounds and 4.72 in the 40. That's a whole lot of speed coming at you. (And a hearty hat tip to VolBrian for this FanShot yesterday.)

And now for a chance to talk out of the other side of my hat: don't expect any commitments this weekend. That doesn't mean it can't happen, but the Auburn weekend is the bigger deal for recruiting. Unlike Florida's situation, this is probably not a big deal for Tennessee simply because it's a quiet weekend for recruiting, whereas Florida had a fair host of recruits on hand for the Tennessee game and was clearly anticipating some good news in kind.

So, for this weekend, it's simply time to relax and enjoy the game.

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