How does 2017 stack up:
It looks like it could be a bit of an uphill climb. The Vols lost a huge amount of talent from that 2016 team. Dobbs, Barnett, Sutton, Josh Malone, Alvin Kamara, I seriously could go on. That team had seriously talented players. All of those guys will probably play on Sunday at some point and they still couldn’t win the East. This year, they go into the new season with more questions than answers.
To start with, who is going to play quarterback for them? Jarrett Guarantano was the #1 rated dual threat in the 2016 recruiting class. He redshirted with Dobbs playing so we don’t know a huge amount about him. All we do know is 2016 was not the strongest year for dual threat QBs. There were 7 pro style passers ranked ahead of Guarantano that year. He’s battling last years backup, Junior Quinten Dormady and true freshman Will McBride.
Tennessee fans watching Butch's press conference pic.twitter.com/y78FG4wlJU
— Vols Big Orange Podcast (@BigOrangePod) November 21, 2016
They lost a lot of talent on defense as well and the past few recruiting classes have not been good for Butch Jones. They went from having top 7 classes in 2014 and 2015 to the 14th and 17th ranked classes in the last 2 years. Jones was able to sell players early on being a new coach for a few years. But after 4 years, he still hasn’t won the East and his famous ‘champions of life’ comment last season says it all. This is the definition of a coach on the hot seat. If he isn’t then Tennessee have basically given up on wanting to win football games.