by Wade Payne - AP

View full size photo »

It's pretty amazing that, for all of the events surrounding Tennessee football since Lane Kiffin's hiring, few topics have achieved as much steady discussion and debate as the color black.  It was a significant enough topic that we not only held a create-your-own-uniform contest, we added some swag as prizes for the winner and runner-up.  Our busiest day at Rocky Top Talk for the entire month of October?  In a month where Crompton turned the corner, Tennessee drilled Georgia, and Alabama very nearly fell to the Vols in Tuscaloosa, it was the day we talked about uniforms.

But if uniform color is a big deal to us, it shouldn't be surprising that color is a big deal to other people as well.  It was important enough for Eric Berry and Montario Hardesty to talk to Mike Hamilton and request black for Halloween.  It was important enough for Mike Hamilton to make the about-face on earlier statements and rush-order black uniforms with screen-printed numbers.  It was important enough that Tennessee's recruiting may very well have turned a surprising and very exciting corner.

Continue reading this post »

View full size photo »

Immediately following the victory over the South Carolina Gamecocks, the Tennessee Volunteers picked up a commitment from junior college defensive end / tight end Ken Adams.  Adams is most likely going to fill in as a tight end for Tennessee, given the number of defensive linemen already committed to the Vols (seven) and the need for another tight end with Aaron Douglas's move to offensive tackle.

Ken Adams is a Scout one-star / Rivals three-star (not 5*!  oh noes!) who played for Copiah-Lincoln in Mississippi and was at one point an Auburn Tigers commit, but the shifting sands of coaching between the two schools most likely tilted the situation in favor of Tennessee, where he will either play in a more pro-style offense with more of a chance to make a name for himself, or he will play for defensive uber-legends Monte Kiffin and Ed Orgeron.  Either way is a win-win for Adams and for the Vols.

Over the last two to three weeks, recruiting news has been predicably slow.  There's no rush for anybody but the early enrollees, and even then, there's no real need to solidify any decisions until high school football seasons are over.  Today's big news was the decommitment of DeMarco Cobbs, who has now pledged his hand to UT the Younger.  Other than that, there really hasn't been a significant change in the status of Tennessee commits for a while (which is why there hasn't been recruiting updates for a while).

But going forward, it's time to focus recruiting attention onto the two most immediate topics:  the search for offensive linemen and the visitors to the Tennessee Volunteers - South Carolina Gamecocks Halloween game.

Continue reading this post »

Jason Suchomel of Orangebloods.com, the Rivals Texas site, has a story up tonight confirming that athlete DeMarco Cobbs of Tulsa, OK has decommitted from the Vols and pledged his services to Texas ($).  The story includes quotes from Cobbs on the situation.  Cobbs was one of a trio of Tennessee commitments following the UCLA game, and is currently ranked as the 9th best athlete and 120th best overall player in the 2010 class.

The 6'1" athlete is also rated as the best player in the state of Oklahoma, and is a surprise pickup for the Longhorns.  Speculation from the Tennessee perspective runs full spectrum:  on one side, this is a significant loss for a UT class of 2010 that was ranked 6th going into Thursday by Rivals.com.  On the other side, the uber-confident Kiffin Chimera continues to recruit so hard and so well that one wonders if decommitments are only going to pave the way for greater commitments down the line.  Either way, Cobbs looked like a player Tennessee wanted and is certainly a player Texas does, so for now he's one that got away...

(Story here.) ;-)

View full size photo »

WHAT A TRAIN RECK!  SUMMETT OBVIOUSLY HAS NO IDEA WHAT SHE'S DOING IF SHE CAN'T OBEY THE MOST OBVIOUS RECRUITING RULES!!!!!  I'M NOT A COACH AND IT'S OBVIOUS TO ME THAT YOU CAN'T HAVE THE MEDIA TAKE PITCURES OF YOU WITH RECRUITS!  SHE'S CLEARLY DISRESPECTING THE SYSTEM AND THE NCAA HAS TO TAKE ACTION!!1  WHAT A CIRCUS!!1

THIS IS JUST RIDICULOUS!!!11  SHE OBVIOUSLY HAS NO PLAN FOR SUCCES AND IS DESPARATE!!!  HER APPARENT LACK OF INTELLIGENCE WILL HURT UT IN THE LONG RUN!!

THERE IS SIMPLY NO BASIS FOR BELIEVING PAT SUMMETT WILL SUCCEED!!1  PAT SUMMETT MUST GO!!!!

RAWRRRR!!!!!11!

So, coming off perhaps the biggest recruiting weekend of the year, with three offensive lineman on official visits to Neyland Stadium and an absolute trouncing of the Georgia Bulldogs by the lowly and miserable* Tennessee Volunteers, the joint ought to be exploding with news on recruiting, right?

Well...

The only concrete news is that T.J. Leifheit has committed to the North Carolina Tarheels - a move that was, to be quite frank, blindingly obvious.  He had been favoring the 'Heels for a long time and they're his home state team, so it would have been a severe surprise to have him go elsewhere.  It'd be easy to go all sour on him for committing to them immediately following his official visit to Tennessee, but that's the way of 18-year old kids.  I was one once.

Otherwise, nobody has committed or decommitted since the last update, so the map remains largely unchanged.  Some observations follow after the jump.  But now, the map:

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

Continue reading this post »

So we finally get some recruiting news:  Bruce Irvin de-commits from Tennessee and commits to Arizona State.  The highly rated JC linebacker would have been a great help to the depth chart, and likely would have made a quick impact on the team, but has decided that greener pastures await him in the Arizona desert.  Via text message, Irvin told GVX:

"I just felt like ASU wanted me more and I can come in and make an impact." 

"UT never called me or showed me any interest like they wanted me before today." 

By his account, UT hadn't made any contact with him for three weeks.  And presumably, they hadn't answered any calls he might have made to them.  Now, it's probably pretty easy at this point to lay into this story as a bunch of bunk, but that would neither accomplish anything nor be particularly kind to a kid.  Here are some quick things to think about regarding Bruce Irvin:

Continue reading this post »

Note:  Bonus video of Tyler Bray is included after the jump.)

As expected, the Ohio weekend went by quietly.  David Mahoney, a JC defensive tackle from California, expressed interest and tactfully said that UT was on the top of his list, but he is going to take a few more official visits before committing, so there's no reason to expect any news from him for a while.  The other name in town for Ohio was Marcus Lattimore, a five-star running back who is either #2 or #1 in the nation, depending if you prefer Rivals or Scout.  (Either way, he's a good prospect.)  There is currently no news on Lattimore's experience this weekend,but I'm at less than 50% for him coming simply because of having Poole, Williams, Oku and Brown on hand for next year.  (But that's total unfounded speculation on my part.)

But the Auburn weekend has the potential to be a much bigger recruiting weekend for Tennessee - particularly if they look good in a win.    Time permitting and necessity warranting, I'll post an update to the visitor's list near the end of the week, but I do expect it to be a more well-attended game than Ohio.  (For the record, Georgia is shaping up to be the biggest weekend for Tennessee recruiting, but that's down the road.)

So, for now, the board:

Continue reading this post »