There was a ton of buzz about Tennessee’s 2014 class, often known as the Legacy Class, as it was labeled as one of the most important classes in UT history.
It was loaded with four and five-star prospects and was ranked in the top-5 range nationally when all was said and done after National Signing Day in 2014.
The influx of talents paid immediate dividends, helping the Vols to a two-win improvement on the field and changing the look and feel of several positions, adding much-needed depth and, overall, upgrading the overall size and speed of the roster.
The recruiting services were dead on evaluating some of Tennessee’s 2014 class, but they either potentially overhyped or undervalued some others and the jury is clearly still out on some of the others.
We thought it’d be interesting, with a year of hindsight, to go back and rerank this much-anticipated class – seeing who was potentially overrated and who has surpassed their rankings thus far. These guys will continue to develop, so their outlooks can and will change, but we have a much better idea what kind of potential they have after a year in the program now.
We took all initial rankings from the 247Sports Composite, which 247Sports describes as “a proprietary algorithm that compiles prospect ‘rankings’ and ‘ratings’ listed in the public domain by the major media recruiting services.” It isn’t a perfectly-balanced ranking across ESPN, Scout, Rivals and 247Sports rankings, but it gives a more consensus look than simply choosing one recruiting service as a base.
