Vols counting on guys staying | Chattanooga Times Free Press

KNOXVILLE — When Derek Dooley took his Tennessee football team on the road for the first time last season, half of the Volunteers' travel squad was making such a trip for the first time.

So on his first full year on the recruiting trail, UT's coach made it essential that he avoid what led to that situation.

"Probably 70 percent of our roster [next season] will be freshmen and sophomores," Dooley said at Wednesday's signing day news conference.

"These two classes, this freshmen and sophomore class, need to go through the program with minimal attrition, so we have a couple of really good senior classes back-to-back. If we do that, the results will come on the field."

Attrition from misses in recruiting led to the young, depth-depleted UT team that won just two of its first eight games in 2010. And while some of the small numbers in the junior and senior classes heading into next season are certainly attributable to three coaching staffs in three different years, Dooley has stressed the importance in his first two signing classes of not missing on signing day.

"Y'all have heard me say that," he said. "With where our program is, with the numbers that we were working off this year, it was extremely important to me that we bring in a group of guys without of lot of risk of leaving — of not being here.

"This is class the most important class for me and our staff. Time will tell if it's good enough."

At one time, the 2007 class brought in by Philip Fulmer was deemed more than good enough, as it was a consensus top-five class nationally, including a quintet of five-star prospects led by star safety Eric Berry.

The class produced three seniors (receivers Gerald Jones and Denarius Moore and defensive end Chris Walker) who played instrumental roles in the 2010 season's resurgence, but 16 players ultimately didn't complete their careers as Vols.

Lane Kiffin's lone class 2009 brought its own excitement, highlighted by the signing of running back Bryce Brown, the nation's top recruit according to Rivals.com. But neither Brown nor David Oku, the nation's top all-purpose back in that class, lasted at UT, and three other players from the class were dismissed for disciplinary reasons.

Fulmer's 2006 and 2008 classes produced 14 more misses. From those four classes alone, that's 36 players, not including a handful of others who have made little or no impact, who would have been upperclassmen the past two seasons.

The situation he stepped into put more pressure on Dooley to not miss on recruits, and he made it an extra point in recruiting this year's class.

"I know we're charged with winning games," Dooley said, "but being able to get a guy to stay through the course is just as important.

"It was very important to me that we tried to get guys who, four years from now, we're going to say, 'You know what, that's a whole bunch of guys who had great contributions to the program.'"

The class that Dooley managed in the two weeks after he was hired last year lost four signees of its own, but only six of last year's 28-player class didn't play in 2010. Dooley said his familiarity with the 27 players the Vols signed Wednesday has him feeling comfortable this class also won't have many misses.

"We're investing in people, and it's important that we minimize the amount of risk," he said. "I think this is the first time I've ever been involved where every single player who committed never flinched.

"They never wavered, they never got shaky, they never got confused, they never went on another trip of significance, so I think that is a real testament to the quality of people that we have and the type of recruiting that we do that's done for the long haul.

"I have a better feel for the kind of players and the kind of people these guys are, [but] I say that with a lot of caution because it's not an exact science. We don't know. I do think we've done a pretty good job of minimizing risk."

Vols counting on guys staying | Chattanooga Times Free Press