Tennessee honest question about your incredible collapse...

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TutHillTiger

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ATPB

In state talent has always been lacking compared to surrounding states. UT has always played nationally which allowed for national recruiting. Add in he largest recruiting budget in the nation and it shows how many players come from out of state.

The good UT teams always had some good in state prospects, but the problem is the numbers of good in state kids are limited. Talent in TN is getting much better, especially in the mid state area.

Tennessee would still be a powerhouse if UT was in Memphis instead of Knoxville. We would be lot better in we were in Little Rock instead of Fayetteville. We are both just too far away from black folks.

The issue has been development moreso than getting talent on campus.

Fulmer was pulling in top 5 classes in his sleep but had a horrible staff and was vastly underachieving
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Kiffin pulled in a top 10 class, but that class would have been closer to top 3-5 if he had stayed through NSD.

Dooley, one of the worst recruiters I have seen in any sport, pulled in a few top 12ish classes before last season's abortion of a class that finished around 20th.

We currently have the #2 class in the nation and we'll likely finish no worse than 7th.

Tennessee being unable to attract talent is a myth that you will see a lot on this board. Development is the real key for us though.

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If this has always been the case how was UT so good for so long? Did it require a lot of out of state players back in its glory days, because I thought they were loaded with Tennessee boys back then but maybe I am wrong.

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Outside of a few years(97&98) Tennessee hasn't been great. They have 5 sec titles in 43 years.

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Didn't we see a bunch of posts in June and July that they had the number one recruiting class...

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Might wanna look at how well the class is holding up before giggling:

LINK

As to the OP, we've always had a good share of locals but we've also had more from outside our state -- more than most schools. Our location means that a lot of GA recruits, for example, are far more local than Memphis recruits (you have to understand that Bristol, TN is actually closer to CANADA than Memphis.) Adding to that there's a lot of Chattanooga boys who technically play HS football in Georgia.

Knoxville is closer to GA, AL, NC, VA, SC, KY, Indianapolis, Indiana, Columbus, OH, and a lot of other places than Memphis. That matters because Memphis is our largest city and metro area but they're hardly local (a lot of Memphians consider Ole Miss & Miss State as their local SEC school). On the flipside, we're just as close and often closer for to home for a lot of out of state players than their in-state schools.

The argument that we don't have enough in-state talent is overstated as our location makes us central to a lot of out of state recruits and in-state talent is often underrated due to our population being spread out (no one scouts small schools). At the same time, in-state talent is on the rise largely due to fact that public and private schools in middle TN and East TN are starting to pour a lot of money into HS FB and smaller schools are now able to wage PR campaigns for their prospects with only a small budget. Before these kids would never have been noticed unless they attended a school in a major media market.

UT has always had to get the vast majority of their players out of state. The 90's were great for UT because Georgia, LSU, and USCe had not yet risen. In addition, UT had a lot of success in CA since USC sucked in the 90's.

No offense to Tennessee, but they're not Alabama. They have a great program and had a good run in the nineties, but no one should expect them to compete for national titles every year. Before the one in '98, their previous national title was in 1951, so it's not like Tennessee has ever regularly competed for national titles for any prolonged period of time.

The same can be said for every SEC program, with the exception of Alabama. You might throw Florida in there if we limit it to the past 30 years, and even LSU, if we limit it to the past 10 years. But even those schools have had lengthy down periods in their history, so I don't find it unusual that Tennessee is having one now. They'll likely be back and others will fall.

They've always had to recruit nationally. I think it will be more difficult now because of instant information available for everyone. All teams can recruit nationally these days.