Tennessee Football: 2019 Recruit Will Make You Dislike Butch Jones Even More
By Zach Ragan
The Tennessee Vols are hoping to land a commitment from one of the top 2019 in-state recruits.
When the Tennessee Vols fired Derek Dooley in late 2012, it didn’t take long for stories of his ineptitude when it came to in-state recruiting to come to light.
Butch Jones, as a result of Dooley’s failure to lock down elite in-state talent, promised to “build a fence” around the state of Tennessee.
For the first few years, he did a pretty good job. But during his last couple of years, he failed to land some of the state’s best players — most notably five-star wide receiver Tee Higgins.
Lance Wilhoite is one of the top 2019 wide receivers in the nation and he recently gave VolQuest some insight into how Jones recruited him at Tennessee.
According to Wilhoite, the previous staff “wasn’t that psyched” about recruiting the Nashville native.
Wilhoite, who is rated in 247Sports’ composite rankings as the No. 1 player in the state of Tennessee, even said that Jones and the previous staff pushed him away.
Fortunately for the Vols, however, Jeremy Pruitt instantly changed Wilhoite’s perception of Tennessee.
That’s because Pruitt, according to Wilhoite, put forth an effort to make it known that he wanted to build a relationship with nation’s No. 19 wide receiver. Wilhoite said that Jones didn’t make that same effort.
Nothing about Jones should surprise me at this point, but I can’t fathom how a coach could fail to make one of the nation’s top playmakers, that happens to reside in the same state as the school you coach at, a top priority.
Maybe Jones knew he wouldn’t be at Tennessee much longer and he no longer cared.
It’s a shame that was the case, because his coaching staff was out on the road recruiting in the middle of a coaching search. Most of them knew they wouldn’t be retained, but they still went out and did their job.
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Just another example of what kind of person Butch Jones turned out to be.