Tag Archives: Charles Mosley

Charles Mosley, Dewayne Hendrix among Tennessee football roster updates

Charles Mosley

Charles Mosley (photo by 247 Sports)

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — Tennessee freshman defensive lineman Charles Mosley will start his career at a whopping 374 pounds, a dozen pounds more than his listed weight during recruiting.

That was among the tidbits gleaned from Tennessee’s release of the updated weights and heights for first-year players on the Vols’ 2014 roster.

Collectively, Tennessee’s first-year players gained 84 pounds and lost 72 for a net difference of 12 pounds from their listed weight when signed.

In some cases, that could indicate a player losing or gaining weight on his own. In other instances, it could simply mean that their weight was artificially inflated or deflated during the recruiting process and this is the first “official” measurement.

Defensive end Dewayne Hendrix gained the most weight in the new release, growing from 252 to 273 pounds. That suggests he could eventually move inside to a defensive tackle spot. (Or perhaps could move inside sooner than expected).

On the other side, defensive end Derek Barnett dropped from 284 to 267 pounds, the biggest loss among first-year players. Barnett is another strong-side end who was expected to play as a big end or eventually move inside.

Hendrix also gained an inch in height and is now listed at 6-foot-4. Three first-year players gained an inch, two lost an inch. Some players, of course, are still growing. The shrinking players likely benefited from an inflated inch during the recruiting process.

Remember: our Tennessee summer roster always stays updated with arrivals, departures and depth chart changes.

 

After new ratings, Josh Malone moves to top of Tennessee’s 2014 class

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — Running back Jalen Hurd has been the highest ranked player in Tennessee’s 2014 class since he verbally committed to the Vols last March.

But a small tweak in the ratings has moved another in-state offensive star ahead of him. Receiver Josh Malone now has a 0.9818 rating in the 247Sports Composite, which combines the rankings of all major recruiting services into one poll. That’s just ahead of Hurd’s 0.9793 rating.

Hurd is no longer a consensus five-star player. He just misses the cutoff, ranked the 36th best player in the country according to the Composite index.

With recruiting in the home stretch, there are likely to be few if any changes between now and National Signing Day. Of the Vols’ 34 commitments, there are 15 four-star players and 19 three-star prospects.

In the newest update, in-state lineman Charles Mosley jumped up a couple of spots to 14th in UT’s class with an 0.8948 rating. Linebacker Kevin Mouhon moved down a tad and is now just below the four-star cutoff in the Composite. Cory Thomas moved ahead of two future teammates and is now the 23rd-rated prospect in the class.

Here’s the full list of UT verbal commitments.

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Tennessee football position preview: Defensive line will be deep, but very inexperienced

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The sixth in a series of position-by-position reviews of the Tennessee football team with an eye toward the start of spring practice in March.

Jordan Williams will be the most experienced returning player on the defensive line (photo by Evan Woodbery)

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — Tennessee is losing six seniors who accounted for roughly 70 percent of the team’s snaps on its defensive line.

Some of the team’s most visible leaders are included among that group.

But while the outlook for 2014 is challenging, it’s not entirely hopeless. A large crop of newcomers will be pushed to compete for playing time immediately. Just as important, a group of inexperienced returning players will be asked to seize a fresh opportunity for playing time.

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Among the departing players, Daniel Hood and Daniel McCullers might be among the most difficult to immediately replace. Big tackles usually don’t just arrive on campus. They are grown and develop over time. 

Jacques Smith, Corey Miller and Marlon Walls also capped their careers with solid senior seasons in 2013.

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Tennessee football position preview: Offensive line starting anew, but Marcus Jackson could help ease transition

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The first in a series of position-by-position reviews of the Tennessee football team with an eye toward the start of spring practice in three months.

Antonio “Tiny” Richardson opted to leave early for the NFL (photo by Evan Woodbery)

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — It’s appropriate to begin our series of offseason previews with the offensive line. Perhaps no other position will have a bigger impact on the Vols’ success or failure in 2014.

In 2013, the Vols not only had five experienced starters, but they had five players who had worked together as a unit for at least two years.

The Vols are losing all five starters, who accounted for roughly 92 percent of all snaps taken this year. The potential replacements are green.

The offense might not have been as prolific as hoped, but the line helped power a running game that kept UT afloat when other options failed. At least three of the linemen will be in the NFL next year.

The line was also remarkably durable. Ja’Wuan James set records for longevity. None of this teammates missed any significant time this year.

As you can see from the chart below, the Vols are replacing a lot of starts and a lot of combined experience.

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As 34th commitment, Charles Mosley continues to help bulk up Vols’ line depth

Charles Mosley (photo from 247Sports)

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — An ice storm delayed Charles Mosley‘s official commitment last week, but he made it official on Monday.

Mosley is the 34th member of Tennessee’s 2014 class and the first from West Tennessee.

He also offers some flexibility at two key positions. The Vols are recruiting Mosley as a defensive tackle, but there’s some thought that he could end up on the offensive line — and perhaps rather quickly.

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Officially, the Vols have four offensive linemen and eight defensive linemen. The loss of Antonio “Tiny” Richardson to the NFL draft added another challenge to the rebuilding of the offensive line. There’s no way the Vols are going to reach their goal of 15 offensive linemen in this recruiting cycle. There’s just too much work to do.

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But the Vols can feel good about their defensive line haul in this class. Some of those ends will probably end up at tackle before their careers are over. They also have some ends on the current roster who could shift inside at least some of the time in 2014.

Has Butch Jones found a recruiting loophole? Vols could use complex strategies to manage brimming class

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — When Butch Jones met with the Knoxville Quarterback Club last week, he dropped a nugget of recruiting information that most wrote off as hyperbole.

“If we can find a way to sign 35, we’ll sign 35,” he said.

Was he exaggerating for effect?

Perhaps.

Or perhaps not.

As Tennessee’s list of verbal commitments continues to grow (it should be up to 34 if lineman Charles Mosley commits on Friday as expected), the Vols are contending with two limits.

One is the NCAA-imposed limit on scholarships. The other is the conference-imposed limit on signees.

There’s no loophole on NCAA scholarship limits. Teams can have only 85 total scholarship players, of whom no more than 25 can be “initial counters” in any given year. (There are some strategies to minimize the impact of the NCAA limits, which I discussed here. More on that in a second).

But is it possible that Tennessee’s staff has stumbled upon a loophole that would effectively allow the Vols to “over-sign” in a way that was common a few years ago but has largely been eliminated because of new rules?

Take a look at the text of the SEC rule limiting signees that went into effect Aug. 1, 2011 (emphasis added):

13.9.1 Letter of Intent – Limitation. Each SEC member institution is limited to signing 25 football prospective student-athletes to a National Letter of Intent, Conference financial aid agreement and/or institutional offer of athletics financial aid from December 1 through May 31st of each year. [Adopted 5/29/09; effective immediately; revised 6/3/11; effective August 1, 2011]

(Here’s a .pdf link if you want to peruse the SEC rules yourself.)

The dates are critical, because the SEC bylaw collides with a new NCAA rules interpretation that impacted this recruiting cycle. Academically eligible student-athletes who plan to enroll early (in January) are now allowed to sign aid agreements with universities as early as Aug. 1.

Tennessee had a flood of players sign aid agreements last month — perhaps a half-dozen players or more. Why is this significant? By the letter of the law, those players wouldn’t count against the SEC’s signing limit. They’re freebies, if you will.

Now, make no mistake: This loophole, if it’s real, doesn’t affect the scholarship limitations. But it would give Tennessee more flexibility than teams that haven’t yet discovered the loophole.

For example, let’s say five players sign aid agreements before Dec. 1, 2013, and enroll at UT in January.

UT can count back at least five scholarships against 2013 because that year’s class was under the 25-man limit. So that’s now 10 that wouldn’t count against the SEC signing limit.

Jones has said he wants to welcome 14 mid-year enrollees in January. If the Vols were able take 10 of those players “off the books” for the purposes of the SEC signing rule, they could sign another 21 players to traditional Letters of Intent in February.

Grand total? 35.

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A look at Tennessee recruiting at midpoint of 2013 season

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KNOXVILLE, Tennessee — The recruiting class committed in August is rarely the same one that signs in February, and the defection of a prospect this week is the first sign of it.

The Vols seem to have lost junior college receiver Eric Lauderdale, a Georgia native now playing juco ball in California.

Lauderdale had just picked up an offer from Florida and is intrigued by the prospect of being a Gator. Tennessee has four committed receivers in its 2014 signing class and is likely to add at least one more, so Lauderdale’s departure won’t hurt from a numbers standpoint. Whether the Vols miss his future production won’t known for years, as is often the case in recruiting.

The Vols are coming off a big recruiting weekend, are at the midpoint of the 2013 season and finally get a break on Saturday. So it’s a good time to review the Vols’ 2014 recruiting outlook.

Who’s in the fold: The Vols have 24 verbal commitments. They can sign 29 — I think — by “back-counting” some early enrollees.

Running back Jalen Hurd is the prize of the class and the only consensus five-star, although safety Todd Kelly and linebacker Dillon Bates are very close to that designation.

See the sheet above for the full list of commitments.

Where are they from? Interestingly, the geographic midpoint of the 2014 class sits in Ten Mile, Tenn., only about 45 miles southwest of Neyland Stadium. So the geographic diversity of the class is spread fairly evenly.

Five of the commitments are from Tennessee; five are from Georgia; Texas, Florida, Ohio and Maryland have two each.

What do they play? In keeping with Butch Jones’ goal of increasing the team’s overall speed, many of the prospects fall into the “athlete” category, so there’s some flexibility in their college position.

Using our best guess, there are five linebackers, five defensive backs and four receivers, two running backs, two tight ends, three offensive linemen and two defensive linemen. And a kicker.

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What do the Vols still need? To answer this question, I broke the usual “roster needs” chart into deeper categories. The “goal” in the first column is flexible and not meant to be set in stone. But it provides a good ballpark estimate.

This chart also includes a “new column” for non-contributors. This is for players who, because of injuries or other reasons, seem unlikely to break into the playing rotation in the future.

The chart shows only one pressing need left for the Vols’ 2014 class — defensive tackle. UT might also like to snag another offensive lineman.

So who’s still on the board? Lots of players. Even though there are officially only five spots left in the class, plenty can change in four months. Here are a few names to watch:

Four-star defensive tackle Charles Mosely of Brighton visited Knoxville this weekend and would be an important addition to the class.

Another in-state prospect, Josh Malone of Gallatin, is an elite receiver prospect. He visited Knoxville this weekend, too.

Twins Evan and Elliott Berry — would provide a boost in the secondary.