8. Early-season struggles didn’t crush them in recruiting
Tennessee’s finish – both to the season and the recruiting class – showed that the early-season frustrations in the 2015 season didn’t crush Butch Jones or the program. It didn’t look great for the Vols after a 2-3 start. There were whispers about the direction of the program, Jones’ future and a fair amount of negativity going around at that point. Recruiting slowed down too as the Vols went through a large drought without a commitment during the season. But the strong close in recruiting helped solidify that Jones was able to regain program momentum after that slow start. That doesn’t mean UT is necessarily ready to finish off those big games in 2016, but it was important to bounce back as a program from those early crushing losses in 2015.
