2009 UT Recruiting Celebration

So earlier today a group of us from work went up to the Wild Horse Saloon in downtown Nashville for a 2009 UT Recruiting Celebration. For those of you who don't really follow college football that much, yesterday was the day that potential recruits across the country commit to the universities that they want to go play for starting this next season. This last season for the UT Vols wasn't too hot and because of that they got a new coach a couple of months back named Lane Kiffin.

Because of these big coaching changes and the fact that the entire coaching staff wasn't put together until three weeks ago, very few Vol Fans had much hope about this years recruiting class. It's been interesting to see the ups and downs that has taken place over the past couple of weeks with new potential recruits coming to visit who hadn't otherwise planned on coming, coupled with some others who decided to leave that had previously committed before Phillip Fulmer (the old coach) was let go. So needless to say, coming into today this year's recruiting class was looking a little bleak and our national ranking for recruiting was barely in the top 25.

So there we were, having just arrived at the Wild Horse and I'm starting to take this all in. There are tons of men and some women there. Some dressed in suits, others in their full out UT apparel. We got in line and got some bar-b-q and took our seats as everything got started. This was my first time at something like this so I wasn't really sure what to expect. Lane Kiffin got up and spoke for a little bit and then one by one each of the main coordinators for the offense and defense came up spoke about the top recruits that were recruited for their parts of the team. We saw pictures and high school football films and after a while you could feel the excitement starting to build in the room. The list of recruits didn't seem like that big of a deal at first but as the coaches went down the line and explained why they picked some guys who hadn't really been ranked that high nationally and why they turned down some players who were ranked pretty high, I began to get even more excited.

On their way to Nashville this morning they also got a fax from one 5-star player out of Louisiana who said he was committing to come to Tennessee. This was a big deal because this guy was one of the top recruits in the whole country and before the coaching change, this guy was almost 100% going to LSU. That, along with the two other top players that they coaches "stole" from Florida made things even more exciting. It was also good to hear that the coaches had chosen some other players that they thought would be big game changes but that other universities had just overlooked.

Each of the coaches had some very dynamic personalities and it seems as though they want to build a program with guys who are hard workers as well as great athletes. It will be interesting to see how this next season goes and I wouldn't be surprised if we only win two or three more games than we did last year. However, I left that recruiting celebration with a little bit more positive outlook on the status of the UT Football program and I really do think that these coaches are capable of creating a really great football program. I feel as though the recruiting classes in the upcoming years will be even better than we can imagine. I guess only time will tell.