The Vols need athletes who excel in multiple areas on the football field, and they’re one of the top teams for just such an athlete in the 2020 recruiting class.
Blayne Toll is a four-star, two-way athlete who plays for Hazen High School in Hazen, Arkansas. Toll tweeted out a graphic including the top five schools in his recruitment, and Tennessee made the cut along with Oklahoma, Arkansas, Ole Miss, and Memphis.
no order? pic.twitter.com/aTIvY7Yr4U
— Blayne Toll (@theblaynetoll) May 3, 2019
According to the 247Sports Composite rankings, Toll is the No. 324 overall prospect and No. 1 player in the state of Arkansas in the 2020 class. Not only does he hold offers from the five schools at the top of his list, but he also has offers from LSU, Auburn, TCU, and Nebraska among many others.
Toll picked up an offer from the Vols on January 18th and then visited campus shortly after for a Junior Day event on January 26th. He’s visited Ole Miss, Arkansas, TCU, and Oklahoma since then as well.
Versatility is key in today’s world of college football, and Toll certainly fits that description.
The 6-foot-5, 240-pound athlete plays quarterback, tight end, and defensive end for Hazen, and he’s excelled at all three in his time in high school. Though his junior stats aren’t available for this past season, he totaled 42 tackles, 24 tackles for loss, nine sacks and three forced fumbles as a defensive end as a sophomore and also tallied 715 passing yards and eight touchdowns to go along with 465 rushing yards and six scores.
Not only that, but Toll plays baseball for Hazen as well, and he’s no slouch there either.
In football, though, Toll plays with exceptional physicality on both sides of the ball. He’s not afraid to lower his shoulder on offense and truck players, but he can also dodge and evade tacklers better than you might imagine. On defense, he can split double teams and uses his natural strength to get buy blockers. He’s still kinda raw from a technique perspective, but there’s a lot of potential there.
Toll has put up some impressive numbers in testing. He can run around a 4.7-second 40-yard dash, a 4.5-second shuttle, has a vertical leap of 33.5 inches, and can bench press 400 pounds.
Tennessee is looking at Toll as either a tight end or an outside linebacker/defensive end in their defense. Toll seems to want to play defense more, but he also seems open to the idea of playing whatever will suit him best at the next level.
