In 2024, the Vols will have a luxury it hasn’t in recent years
Knoxville, Tenn. – Tennessee’s Josh Heupel enters his fourth season at the helm, and despite the well-documented reality that he runs a fast offense, the newcomers are just as surprised at how fast-paced the team moves as players were when Heupel first implemented his system.
While the freshman get up to speed, they’re also a group that helps to move this program forward.
Each year Tennessee has jumped in the recruiting ranks going from 17 to now hovering around six, depending on which recruiting site you trust.
Regardless, the quality of athletes that take the field for the Vols continues to improve.
4-star defensive end Jordan Ross, who was also ranked 24 in ESPN’s top 300, said coming to Tennessee was an easy decision. When you consider he gets to work alongside guys like James Pearce Jr., it seems like a no-brainer.
“Just to know that I can learn from the best and learn how to play. He [Pearce] is a first rounder, he knows what he’s doing. He’s there for a reason. He teaches me because I sit right beside him every day. He teaches me the plays, how he got it down, how he learned it at first,” said Ross.
Athletes like Ross have also helped to provide quality depth within the roster. A luxury Tennessee lacked until recently.
It’s now a reality that has defensive lineman Omari Thomas very excited, Partially because it means the line can get a bit more rest, allowing them to be fresher deeper into the season.
“We got so much depth, it’s really good,” said Thomas. “It’s good that we got a lot of guys that at a high level, we rotate, you know we’re big guys we get tired, so you always want to have people to rotate. That’s not something we necessarily had when I first got here, or maybe the year after that, but it’s grown to that. They just continue to recruit, continue to get guys in here, and the people that stayed here continued to grow and mature. I feel now as a defensive line, we probably have the most veteran team on the group.”
While Heupel said he won’t put a ceiling on his expectations, there’s certainly a floor to his expectations. Thomas said it’s simple, they refuse to be complacent.
“I’ve just seen this program continue to not get complacent, we continue to grow. Everything we do is we like to have fun with what we’re doing. Just seeing the program really grow from just the culture, all aspects around, everybody really just buying into the program, loving what we’re doing at Tennessee. For me that’s been the biggest change, everybody buying into what we do,” said Thomas.
De’Shaan Brame, a four-star tight end, is another big get for Tennessee’s future, the 2025 commit recently flipped from Oregon to the Vols.
This isn’t the first time Tennessee was able to get a recruit to flip.
Jourdan Thomas was once in a similar situation. The defensive back had committed to Mississippi State, but that didn’t keep Tennessee from pursuing him.
It was that pursuit that influenced the now-sophomore to trade for the Orange and White.
“Coach Heupel really cares about his players,” said Thomas. “Not only him but the whole coaching staff. Throughout my process at Mississippi State, they stayed on me as a staff and really showed how much they cared and wanted me and how much they trusted me as player and as a person. That did a lot for me, so I ended up committing here.”
Luckily for guys like Thomas, Heupel and staff are the same coaches every day.
“All of it is definitely true. He lived up to and passed my standard of, and expectations of what a coach should be. He continues to do that day in and day out, He’s consistent, every coach is consistent with their character and who they are, with their coaching ability and how they push you and hold you accountable. I’m really thankful for him,” said Thomas.
Thomas added, “From the first day he got here he said who he is and that’s the only thing he’s shown us. It’s just good to know he comes in every day being consistent. Like that’s what we try to do every day as a team, come in and be consistent. So it’s good when you have a good ball coach who comes in and actually acts on what he speaks. It’s good. It’s easy to follow and do that. And we come in and do the same thing every day.”
While the coaching staff and past performances play key roles in getting the recruits the program needs, Heupel emphasized Wednesday that recruiting finishes with the guys in the building.
Players like Thomas play the biggest role in moving the needle forward.
They’ve been a huge part of the change here inside of this building in who we are and how we operate. They’re a big part of the recruiting process. At the end of the day, when recruits come on campus, your players are the biggest touch point and sales point for what it’s like to be a Vol. They’ve been a huge part of that as well. That group – Omari is one of the guys that you named – the journey that this program has been on, how we’ve navigated the success that we’ve had, there’s more out there, we understand that (and) we’re working towards that every day, but those guys have been a huge part of changing the trajectory of Tennessee football,” said Heupel.
Now in Thomas’ final year at Tennessee, his excitement for the potential of the defensive line room is at an all-time high.
Nico Iamaleava’s growth since the Citrus Bowl.
“We find our pride in just being able to dominate, dominate the line of scrimmage, we want to play on the other side of the line of scrimmage. So when we’re doing that, that’s just something that we talk about. We got to dictate how this game goes. I just feel like that’s a mindset a lot of us defensive lineman have put in our heads. We embrace that to each other, linebackers, so everybody know that we all got the same mindset, we got to dominate,” said Thomas.
Thomas added, “I’m all about getting the right guys in our program. I’m all about that and creating a good culture here, building that and keeping that. That’s what we’re trying to do here. So, it’s very important that we get the right players, the right people in here, and continue to climb. I’m all in.”
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