4-star offensive tackle Shamurad Umarov commits to Tennessee

It’s been a solid 48 hours for Tennessee football recruiting. On Thursday afternoon, they grabbed one of their top offensive targets in 4-star athlete Cameron Seldon. On Friday afternoon, they followed it up with one of their top offensive line targets, 4-star tackle Shamurad Umarov.

Tennessee didn’t have to venture too far to find Umarov. He plays at Denmark High School in Alpharetta, Georgia, around 3 hours from Knoxville. Not surprisingly, Tennessee’s main competition here was the Georgia Bulldogs, with the LSU Tigers and Michigan State Spartans jockeying for his services as well. For the second year in a row, the Volunteers go into the Peach State and grab a top lineman from the home team (last year’s being 4-star Addison Nichols).

Umarov (6-foot-6, 337 pounds) is currently ranked 346th overall in the 247Sports Composite Rankings, and comes in as the 31st ranked tackle. 247Sports is higher on him, placing him at 204th overall and 19th at his position. I went into Umarov‘s film thinking that he would be more of a project.

I left thinking he might still be underrated.

The trait that stuck out to me was his get-off. This is something that you can only coach so much. Some guys have lightning fast quickness on the snap, while others can be a bit slower, and everything in between. Umarov definitely falls into the former category. He is typically the first one on the offensive line making contact, and it’s brutally effective against defensive linemen. When he does connect, he’s got great punch and physicality. He keeps his feet churning and plays to the whistle. He lines up at tackle, but can also go inside at guard.

Like many lineman at his age, he is much better as a run blocker than a pass blocker. He actually seems to have decent footwork when going into his pass blocking stance— but he doesn’t anchor like you might expect him to after watching the rest of his tape. I don’t really think this is a “unfixable” issue. He probably just needs to put on more good weight and receive college coaching. Umarov projects as a prototypical left tackle.

Umarov’s commitment puts Tennessee’s class ranking at seventh nationally. It also gives Tennessee their seventh blue chip prospect of the class.