How bad was the talent against Missouri and Vandy?

Obviously, there was attrition -most notably Trey Smith- during the season and we didn't start our best 22 guys with scholarships. About where in the country did the 2018 Vols rank in talent IYO by the end of the season?

Conventional wisdom here is that Pruitt needs to flip the roster right because we are not in the top half of the SEC right now, right?

 

What do we make of this?

https://247sports.com/Season/2018-Football/CollegeTeamTalentComposite/

 

How many, and who will be our NFL draft picks this year and next, and how does that stack up against teams on our schedule.
Thats where we were and still are until we get some upperclassmen talent.

 

Going through and looking at the 4*s (35 of 85 on the roster) and above, here are the hindsight rankings:

Dillon Bates - laughable
Byrd - Meh
Chryst - laughable
Crosby - Who?
Fils-Aime - laughable
Guarantano - Meh
Ignont - Meh
Ryan Johnson - meh
TK Jr - not the same after the injury
Brandon Kennedy - injured
Kongbo - meh
Osborne - meh
Petersen - arrived late and rarely played
Richmond - laughable
Sapp - meh
Smith - injured

 

I get that these guys were recruited by Lyle’s staff but how did/do we continually whiff on supposedly high quality recruits when other schools roll 7’s more often than not.

 

Starters against Vandy:

TE: Anderson: Alabama, Auburn, etc. Pruitt Guy.
LT: Tatum: Alabama, Auburn, etc.
LG Johnson: Meh list. (Nebraska, Texas, USC)
C: R. Johnson: Alabama, Clemson, etc.
RG: Niehaus: Garbage List
RT: Richmond: Bama, Auburn, Clemson, Etc.
RB: Ty Chandler: Everyone but Bama
WR: Callaway: Everyone
WR: Jennings: Alabama, Auburn, etc.
QB Guarantano: Everyone

Kyle Phillips: Everyone
Shy Tuttle: Everyone
Alexis Johnson: Alabama, etc.
De Andre Johnson: Not great. Included Auburn.
Darrel Taylor: Good list (Basically all but UGA and Bama)
Daniel Bituli: Great list (Basically all but UGA and Bama)
Kirkland Jr.: Great list (Basically all but UGA and Bama)
Alontae Taylor: No Bama but everyone else.
Thompson: Weak list
Nigel Warrior: Everyone
Micah Abernathy: Everyone

 

Is it possible that Butch couldn’t evaluate players, could only get the highly ranked but injury-prone players that the big guys didn’t really want, or some combination of the two?

 

Very. It could also be due in part to the lack of stability on the staff, especially S&C... in short, Lyle was/is an utter and complete dipshit who should fall on his knees every night and give praise to God that UT was dumb enough to ever hire him in the first place.

 

How he was ever able to lure the likes of Barnett, Kamara and others here will forever be a mystery to me.

 

Butch was recruiting the same guys the big guys were for a couple years. I don't think many people are projecting injury proneness out of HS.

My take is that our roster problem is a distant to second to what we do with guys once they are on campus.

 

You don't think some of these guys that are meh/laughable would have turned out different under a competent regime?

 

Probable, given the evidence against the previous moron.

 

Don’t know that it would have helped Richmond... dude looked like he’d never played football in his life quite a few times this past season...

 

There were a lot of guys who simply never wanted to play anymore after getting a steady dose of Lyle.

 

I know I didn’t want to WATCH any more...

 

That is definitely a huge problem, or at least it has been a huge problem. I don't think you can pin the lack of development of guys that have been on campus for 3 or 4 years on the coach that has been on campus for 1.

 

He’d have figured it out or been recruited over immediately at any decent SEC school.

 

I wanted to see more progress over the course of the season. Next year will tell the tale for me.

 

Co-signed.

I’ll grudgingly give him a pass this year due to the Lyle stank over the program but next year needs to yield solid results (7-8 wins) and marked improvement. Lose to Vanderbilt again and he can GTFO.

 

The last two games were a cluster[uck fay]. Chryst's interception killed them against Mizzou and the Vandy game was embarrassing. Before that, things were going decently well