Tennessee Volunteer Football

Dennis Rogan: NFL Draft Profile

By Joel Hollingsworth Feb 28, 2010, 7:09pm EST

Prior NFL Draft Player Profiles from RTT:

Defensive back Eric Berry

Defensive tackle Dan Williams

As always, be sure to checkout SB Nation's own Mocking the Draft to keep up with where our guys might be headed.

Defensive Tackle Back Dennis Rogan's NFL Draft Profile

Measurements

5'10", 178 pounds
4.6 forty time (likely incorrect; CBS has him listed as 4.49)
RTT#25 in the Class of 2007 (We and the recruiting services all had him underrated and should have ignored the paltry three stars and looked instead at the 5,261 yards and 81 touchdowns he had in high school.)

The 140-character Twitter Summary

Underrated coming out of high school. Talent and playmaking ability discovered late by Tennessee coaching staff. Probably underrated in the NFL draft.

Strengths

Dennis Rogan must be the consummate gamer. He's not huge, he's not especially fast, but the guy just makes plays when the lights come on. Despite gaining over 5,000 yards and four score touchdowns in high school, the recruiting services gave him only three stars. He was barely used at all for the first half of his first season, and he wasn't used as a punt returner until 3/4 of the way through the season, but he finished his freshman year with 16 punt returns for 165 yards and had 548 yards despite only playing half of the season and then only on special teams. He did start playing some cornerback toward the end of the season as well, and he essentially won the Vanderbilt game for Tennessee:

Rogan played every game the following season, but he had to prove himself all over again when Lane Kiffin and the new staff that had arrived in 2009 overlooked Rogan's history in favor of players with better off-the-field measurables. Punt return duties were most given to a new blue-chip arrival (who didn't pan out), and so Rogan had only six punt returns for 46 yards. He did, however, have 42 tackles and several big plays in 2009:

Weaknesses

There must be some reason that recruiting analysts and two different coaching staffs have chosen other players to start ahead of Rogan. Whether it's simply his size, speed, work ethic, or something else, I don't know. All I know is that when he gets on the field, he makes plays.

Additional endearing/charming/interesting thing

Rogan can't kick:

The Vols have had a little fun at practice this week, with Jonathan Crompton winning one for the offense by kicking a 20-yard field goal. He was up against Dennis Rogan, whose kick "barely made it to the line of scrimmage." Perhaps it wasn't Rogan's fault, though, as the team discovered something that Eric Berry can't do: hold for placekicks.

Over/underrated?

CBS has Rogan listed as the 400th-best NFL draft prospect. That may actually be fine, but based on Rogan's history of proving everyone wrong, I'm going with "underrated."

Additional articles on Dennnis Rogan from RTT

Final career stats

GP	Int. Ret.			Fum. Ret.			Punt Ret.			Kickoff Ret.			Tackles					P. Def.	FF
	No	Yds	TD	No	Yds	TD	No	Yds	TD	No	Yds	TD	Ast	Solo	Asst Loss	Solo Loss	Loss Yds
37	2	38	0	2	42	0	36	273	0	43	1133	0	53	88	1	6	38	12	1