Well, it's not even noon on National Signing Day, and most of the hay is already in the barn. Below is a list of Tennessee's current signees:
|
Position
|
Player
|
Rivals
Stars |
Scout
Stars |
| QB | Tyler Bray (EE) |
4
|
3
|
| Nash Nance (NSD) |
2
|
3
|
|
| Matt Simms (EE) |
3
|
3
|
|
| RB | Rajion Neal (NSD) |
4
|
3
|
| FB | Channing Fugate (EE) |
3
|
3
|
| WR | Ted Meline (EE) |
4
|
3
|
| Matt Milton (EE) |
4
|
4
|
|
| Da'Rick Rogers (NSD) |
5
|
5
|
|
| Justin Hunter (NSD) |
4
|
4
|
|
| OL | James Stone (NSD) |
4
|
3
|
| Zach Fulton (NSD) |
3
|
3
|
|
| Jawuan James (EE) |
4
|
4
|
|
| Marques Pair (NSD) |
3
|
3
|
|
| TE | Mychal Rivera (NSD) |
3
|
3
|
| DE | Martaze Jackson (NSD) |
3
|
2
|
| Corey Miller (EE) |
4
|
4
|
|
| Jacques Smith (EE) |
4
|
4
|
|
| DT | John Brown (NSD) |
4
|
4
|
| LB | John Propst (NSD) |
3
|
3
|
| Raiques Crump (NSD) |
2
|
2
|
|
| DB | Dave Clark (NSD) |
4
|
3
|
| Eddrick Loften (NSD) |
4
|
3
|
|
| Dontavis Sapp (NSD) |
4
|
2
|
|
| ST | Michael Palardy (NSD) |
3
|
4
|
| ATH | Marques Dixon (NSD) |
3
|
3
|
|
Total Signees |
25 |
As of right now (12:40 p.m.), Rivals has Tennessee at #8, behind four SEC teams and them thieves out on the west coast. Scout has us at #11, behind the same four SEC schools and that same band of scallywags.
More analysis to come, but my initial, knee-jerk impressions are that Dooley did a pretty good job and a fantastic job under the circumstances. First the bad news: J.C. Copeland signed with LSU, Glen Stanley signed with USC, and Ralph Williams signed with Ole Miss.
But the good really outweighs the bad, I think. Picking up Da'Rick Rogers was absolutely huge, and adding him to a corps consisting of Justin Hunter, Matt Milton, and Ted Meline is causing reasonable folks to declare that this might be the best wide receiver class in Tennessee history, which is saying something about a school formerly known as Wide Receiver U.
Losing out on defensive lineman Copeland hurt, but in picking up offensive lineman James Stone, especially when you consider it was between us and Alabama, you almost have to like that trade if a trade must be made. Going into today, I thought we were looking light on offensive linemen, defensive tackles, and wide receivers. Consider receivers handled, and although I think we're still a bit light on defensive tackles and offensive linemen, we at least got the ones we expected to get.