Thanks to the historic haul of commitments the Vols received on Orange Carpet Day back on June 18th, Tennessee vaulted up recruiting rankings for every major recruiting service. The Vols went from hanging around the high-20’s and even low-30’s to breaching the top 10 in every service. But with the decommitment of four-star receiver K.D. Nixon earlier this week, the Vols have moved down slightly in the rankings but still remain in the top 10 in most of them.
Here is a recruiting update for the Vols’ 2017 recruiting class and where they rank on all the major recruiting services.
NOTE: The Vols currently have 17 commitments in their 2017 class.
247Sports
If you follow recruiting much at all, you’ll know 247Sports has two different recruiting rankings on their site. They have their own rankings that their own scouts put out, and they have their composite rankings that compile the scores from all the other recruiting sites (including their own) and averages them out for every player. The latter is especially effective to see how a player is generally viewed overall by everyone and not just a specific site.
According to 247Sports’ composite rankings, the Vols have the 11th-best recruiting class of 2017, which ranks them 5th in the SEC as well. That ranking gives Tennessee two four-star commits and 15 three-star commits.
The 247Sports regular rankings, however, have a higher opinion of the Vols’ class, placing them 7th in the country and 4th in the SEC. According to that metric, the Vols have two four-stars and 14 three-stars with one player, kicker Brent Cimaglia, falling below the three-star rating. Safety Maleik Gray and defensive tackle Eric Crosby are the two four-stars for the Vols according to both 247Sports rankings.
And according to both rankings, the Vols have two top-200 recruits in their 2017 class (Gray and Crosby again).
Rivals
Aside from the regular 247Sports rankings, Rivals has the highest opinion of the Vols’ 2017 class as it stands right now.
Rivals has Tennessee’s 2017 class ranked No. 9 in the country and 5th in the SEC. According to Rivals, the Vols have three four-stars and 12 three-stars in their class. Rivals also does an average star rating for each class, and the Vols have an average of 3.06 for their 2017 class right now.
The Vols three four-star commits according to Rivals are DT Kivon Bennett, DB Maleik Gray, and DE LaTrell Bumphus.
Scout
In Scout.com’s rankings, the Vols have the most four-stars of any recruiting service. But despite that, they’re only barely in the top 10, coming in at exactly 10th in Scout’s rankings. That places them 5th in the SEC.
Scout’s rankings gives the Vols four four-star recruits and 12 three-stars. Those four-stars are Maleik Gray, Eric Crosby, LB Jaquan Henderson, and DB Cheyenne LaBruzza. The Vols also have two top-100 players in Scout’s rankings (Gray and Crosby).
According to Scout’s average star rating, the Vols have an average of 3.18 stars in their 2017 class.
ESPN
Despite dropping a couple spots after K.D. Nixon’s decommitment, the Vols are still in ESPN’s top 10 in recruiting rankings as well, placing 10th overall and 5th in the SEC.
In ESPN’s rankings, the Vols have three four-stars, Maleik Gray, Eric Crosby, and LaTrell Bumphus (who they have listed as an athlete). Those three are also top-300 overall players according to ESPN’s rankings.
RTI Ranking
Our own RTI rankings are an average of where the major recruiting services have the Vols ranked. The lowest the Vols are placed right now is 11th and the highest is 7th, and putting in the two No. 10 rankings and No. 9 ranking averages out to a ranking of 9.4.
Additionally, the Vols average 2.8 four-stars in their class among the five different metrics.
