Not an every down DE as a freshman but Lewis is an athletic freak. If you can find it online, go watch his USAA game.
He's getting the Dooley guys graduated in 3 years and getting them gone. There's got to be some kind of loop hole with guys graduating in December because nearly every senior did that in Butch's two years here.
What color of a shirt is it when the HC doesn't do an in-home visit, they don't come on an official visit, can sign financial aide papers, can enroll for one semester and then be put on scholly, without it counting against the initial enrollee count of 25? I could have completely mixed that up, or am just wrong - but I don't think that they closed that loophole from last season, and isn't that how the Berry twins came in, without counting toward the class? Maybe TKJr, too? I don't think its happenstance that we've had so many December graduations / early enrollees.
Do we have any of those in this class? IIRC, we had a few in last year's class, but they wanted to keep that status unknown until NSD, or right afterwards (unknown to other schools / general public). Could this kid be one of those?
I am thinking that the December grads open up EE spots as you cannot have more than 85 on scholarship at once. But, I don't know that that helps you exceed 25. The back-counting I am aware of is when you are short the prior class and we definitely were not. I can't wait to find out though. And, props to Butch for figuring it out.
I think we sign 29. We have 28 commits right now. Blueshirt Stewart, Bruce and Lovingood (all are eligible, from TN and aren't threats to go elsewhere unless forced) and that puts us at 25 to sign on NSD. Finish with Pat Allen, Sapp, Love and Newsome. The three blueshirts then will enroll in the fall.
IF something like this can happen: 1. How many new players will that be, between last year's class and this one? What percentage of our roster does that represent? 2. Legit kudos to Butch and Co., for figuring out a way to get this done. You can worry / second-guess / complain about a myriad of things with this staff, but you'll play hell in finding fault in their re-stocking the roster. Credit where it's due, and here, it absolutely is.
I think we have 59 players returning on the roster, as of right now. That would allow us to add 26 players on scholarship. I would expect to see another 6 to 8 leave between now and spring. Hubbs has said there will be more attrition from some of the upperclassmen that do nothing but ride the pine. To make the scenario that I posted doable, Tennessee would need the returning roster trimmed down to 53 to make room for the 32 signees (29 on NSD then the blueshirt candidates come autumn).
Then, who are the most likely candidates that will be "encouraged" to look elsewhere, of those already on the roster?
