re: Marques Ford decommits from VOLS (UPDATE: Butch Jones pulls scholarship offer)

Is anyone surprised? Italians are known shifters

We are loaded at that position and thin at other positions of need. We also only have a couple spots left. He was a victim of circumstance. Sucks cause I think he's gonna be a good player

John Kelly, Quarte Sapp, Pat Allen, Richmond, Prince, Bryce Love.

We want a RB(Kelly or Love, Jaashan Lewis is the backup option), a tackle, and if we don't get Allen or Richmond we'll take Sapp. Prince would require us to magically find another spot. We told Ryan Newsome we were out of room last week, and we'd been on him hard all year. It may end up we just take the first guy that commits once we get a RB out of the rest of that list, and just find a way to make the numbers work if we hit the jackpot with someone on signing day.

I don't think we lose any of our current commits, Boulware and OSU is the only really concerning visit.

We have other positions of much greater need than DE. We are stacked there this year. Sucks for the kid, but it's not like this doesn't happen pretty much everywhere in big time recruiting when the numbers are tight.

And his position coach (his main recruiter) is the one with the best relationship with him so I see why he was the one to tell him.

At least someone told him. I remember when Eddie Printz decommitted from UCLA because they hadn't heard back from them for a few months.

But you're right, it should come from the head coach.

Really sucks to lose Ford, especially given the circumstances, but it shows how far UT has come in recruiting. Having to turn away top talent like Ford is a complete 180 from the Dooley "recruiting" days.

Ford would've been the crown jewel of a Dooley class.

Trust me, there's a reason we're all excited about the way Butch has flipped the roster in 2 years. Our DL was so fricking bad when he got here in 2013 and now this is what we're looking at in 2015

DT
O'Brien (Jr.)
Mixon (So.)
Williams (Sr.)
Sawyers (So)
McKenzie (Fr) 5*
Tuttle (Fr) 5*
Picou (Fr) 4*


DE
Barnett (So)
Maggitt (Sr)
Vereen (Jr)
Lewis (Jr)
Phillips (Fr) 5*
Butcher (Fr) 4*
Taylor (Fr) 4*

FWIW, I would've rather had kept Ford and told someone else to gtfo but you can certainly see why they felt okay about dropping him.

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shite kids do this crap all the time. Its a dog eat dog business. Its okay for them to flip 10 times before nsd but if we decide we dont need one its oh poor them. See ya! Good luck

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I'm baffled by people who can't see the difference between kids flipping and schools pulling their scholarship. One drastically effects the life of the offended party. The other doesn't.

quote:

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Its okay for them to flip 10 times before nsd but if we decide we dont need one its oh poor them.

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Whose we sucka?

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Absolute chicken shite move by Butch Jones to have Stripling call him to tell him. If you're going to do this to a kid two weeks before NSD, Butch Jones needs to get on a plane and go see the kid and his family to tell them face to face like a man. What a pussy.

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I am a huge CBJ supporter but it really sucks that A he didn't tell him himself and B didn't do it in person this weekend when he was in Knoxville!

I am sure they got a commitment this week that was the tipping point but damn how bad does it suck for the kid that this happens literally 3 days after he gets back from his OV.

He probably was loved on all weekend by some hunnies, got tight with his future teammates and talked up to by the coaches.

Then 3 days later...yea, you know, you really should probably look at NC St or WVU cause we got a OT commitment that we didn't think we could get.

I mean I am glad TN is in this position and No I don't think it is going to negatively effect our recruiting going forward like the Cock fan does because this staff is absurdly good at recruiting and for every 1 player that gets scared by this there will be 10 more that want to be Vols regardless.

BUT I do really feel bad for Ford and wish this could have been at least done while he was on campus three days ago.