VOLuntarilyConservative

As regular readers are sure to remember, I usually liveblog National Signing Day for the Vols.

Not this year. Coach Fulmer, who gets to take much of the credit for past outstanding recruiting classes, gets to take the blame for this one. Fulmer supporters will resort to staff changes, arrests, negative recruiting, etc., as the reasons for this failure, but other schools (Alabama and South Carolina with staff changes, North Carolina, Clemson, Georgia and Florida with arrests) have had the same problems and all managed to spank Fulmer on the recruiting trail this year.

There are a few nice players in this class (Aaron Douglas, Marlon Walls, and Gerald Williams will all start for the Vols someday), but overall this has to be the worst class for UT in over a decade. No offense to the guys coming in who want to wear the orange, but it's hard to imagine UT keeping up with the Alabama's, Florida's, and Georgia's of the world when the lifeblood of the program doesn't represent the best athletes in the country.

Hopefully there will be some surprises today (Antoine McClain, Enrique Davis, Quinton Coples, and Jerrell Harris would all boost this class by leaps and bounds with surprise commitments to the Vols), but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

Perhaps I should start covering basketball recruiting more. As nearly 20,000 observed last night at a raucous Thompson-Boling Arena, Knoxville has become a basketball town.

Labels: Football, UT Basketball