Didn't really know anything about him until today when I saw an interview on Fox Sports. He's a big time cornerback from Fairburn, GA that had offers from all the big schools. The interesting thing about him is that he is at the same high school Eric Berry attended. He described Berry as "like a big brother" and stated he got all kinds of advice from him about his college choice. As far as I know, UT didn't get a sniff from this guy. He signed with Auburn and Trooper Taylor, the coach that recruited Berry and has bad-mouthed Tennessee in the past. Maybe this isn't the biggest loss in the world, but it could be a foreshadowing of the Berry twins' recruitment. Dooley needs to work on repairing that relationship.
If you're talking about Joshua Holsey, he was reportedly just waiting for a Tennessee offer for weeks and weeks last spring, and Eric Berry reportedly criticized Dooley for not giving it to him. We then offered on April 14th, and he pretty much ignored us and went to Auburn.
Well damn. Wonder what the holdup was. Guy had offers from Bama, Florida, USC, Wisconsin, and others. Seems like he'd have been a much better option than either Gray or Bonner.
Dooley likes big corners, Holsey is tiny. That's all I can think of. That said, while I agree that we waited too long, if we offered in friggin April, I'm not buying "got in too late" as the reason we didn't get him. Either he had personal problems with Dooley or he wasn't as excited about us as everyone was saying (come to think of it, I think Sab was behind those reports)
I've heard people say Bonner is the best DB in the state of Georgia (and one of the best in the Southeast). He had offers from Alabama, Georgia, Florida State, and Southern Cal. Then he stole some iPods on his campus visit to Athens, and everybody backed off. Tennessee offered him after (so Dooley claims) he convinced us that he'd turned over a new leaf. I believe Oklahoma did too. But no one's ever worried about his talent.
I don't think he ever really wanted to be a Vol and Dooley didn't really want hI'm either. It was a token offer to keep the peace
Right, the point is that we obviously weren't waiting to hear from Bonner beforr we decided on Holsey. Bonner wasn't even offered until January. Seems odd we recruited one guy with horrible grades (Crowley) and one under the radar guy (Gray) and that's pretty much it at CB. Seems like we offered Gray kind of late, too. So njeither Gray or Bonner were holding up Holsey and if we were planning on tsking two corners all along, neither was Crowley. Just seems odd we didn't go after him harder.
Perhaps the size issue has some merit...how does the size of Crowley and Bonner compare to Holsey? Are they bigger corners? Gray is a burner, right? Or am I confusing him with someone else?