Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 3/17/17. David Cobb is the Chattanooga Times Free Press's new Tennessee beat reporter. Taken on March 16, 2017.KNOXVILLE - Tennessee's focus with its 2019 football recruiting class materialized before the Volunteers ever played a game under their first-year coach.
Jeremy Pruitt and the rest of the staff started going after big players, guys that can stock the offensive and defensive lines and play a vintage, powerful style.
Now it is clear why.
Three games have illustrated what this coaching staff recognized soon after arriving at Tennessee and probably long before.
Recruiting stars be danged, the Vols are not strong in the trenches.
Tennessee's defensive front struggled to consistently generate a pass rush against ETSU and UTEP, and the offensive line looked spotty in those contests.
The Vols won both games handily because of the inferiority of the opponents.
Those days are over. Florida is up next.
The Gators - struggling as they may be - are just the beginning of an uptick in competition that will continue to expose Tennessee's offensive and defensive lines as substandard unless something clicks and those units play substantially better over the coming weeks.
If Pruitt is going to execute a major turnaround in the short time window afforded to major college football coaches at new programs, it appears he needs immediate help on the offensive and defensive lines.
Give him credit. Pruitt recognized this in time to attract junior college offensive lineman Jahmir Johnson, who is starting at left guard, to be part of the 2018 recruiting class.
He also lured in freshman Jerome Carvin, who is starting at right guard, and graduate transfer Brandon Kennedy, who was starting at center until a knee injury ended his season.
That's three out of the six players who have logged a start on the offensive line this season who were recruited by Pruitt.
Next season, the defensive line and offensive lines could be comprised almost entirely of players recruited by Pruitt while the offensive skill players remain mostly unchanged.
The Volunteers have a higher percentage of power position players committed to their 2019 signing class than any other team in the Southeastern Conference.
Twelve of Tennessee's 20 commitments - exactly 60 percent - are offensive linemen, defensive linemen/pass rushers or tight ends.
Only one is a wide receiver or running back. Tennessee already has quality talent at those positions.
Power position breakdown in 2019 SEC recruiting
Percentage of offensive linemen, tight ends and defensive ends/pass rushers committed to SEC schools in the 2019 class: 1 Tennessee 12 of 20 (60%) 2 Arkansas 10 of 19 (52.6%) 3 Georgia 10 of 19 (52.6%) 4 Alabama 11 of 21 (52.4%) 5 South Carolina 9 of 18 (50%) 6 Mississippi State 8 of 16 (50%) 7 Auburn 7 of 15 (46.7%) 8 Vanderbilt 6 of 15 (40%) 9 Ole Miss 10 of 27 (37%) 10 Texas A&M 9 of 25 (36%) 11 Florida 5 of 15 (33.3%) 12 Kentucky 5 of 15 (33.3%) 13 LSU 6 of 19 (31.6%) 14 Missouri 3 of 12 (25%) - Data compiled from 247Sports on 9/15.
Obviously, sophomore offensive lineman Trey Smith is a bright spot with this season's offensive line. There is hope that with Smith at left tackle the Vols' offensive line could gel into a quality unit in time to help the Vols finish the season with a winning streak.
It's just hard to imagine that growing process will look very pretty against Florida, Georgia, Auburn and Alabama.
Pruitt noticed a missing noise when his team began scrimmaging this spring.
"When the ball is snapped you can usually hear a pop," he said. "Well we don't hardly have the pop yet. So we have to get a little more pop."
It was reasonable to hope that the addition of summer enrollees and the return of injured players would provide the pop of pads colliding on the offensive and defensive lines this fall.
So far, that line of thinking appears to be a dud.
The pop might not arrive until after signing day.
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/volsupdate.