KNOXVILLE - The 16-hour span from Tuesday night to Wednesday afternoon could not have gone much better for Tennessee's football program.
That strong finish to the 2016 recruiting class for which the Volunteers were aiming?
Well, it happened.
Butch Jones capped his fourth class as Tennessee's head coach with the late additions of athlete Tyler Byrd, safety Nigel Warrior, wide receiver Latrell Williams and defensive end Jonathan Kongbo.
"Our challenge was to finish strong," Jones said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon. "We thought we had a great nucleus in this recruiting class already intact, and now if we could add to that, we wanted to do that. We set forth, and we're going to go try to get the best players that fit our recruiting profile, no matter where they're at.
"To be able to add those individuals those individuals, to us, are difference-makers, and they make you better being in your football program."
Byrd got the ball rolling by flipping from Miami on Tuesday night, and Warrior and Williams, another player formerly committed to Miami, continued the momentum Wednesday morning.
Kongbo, the nation's top junior college prospect, according to 247sports.com, put the cherry on top of the class by signing early Wednesday afternoon.
For most of the day, Kongbo's destination was a mystery. It appeared the former Tennessee commitment was headed to Ole Miss at one point as his recruitment kept taking twists and turns. After announcing on Twitter he would sign at 4 p.m. Eastern, he abruptly signed more than two hours earlier.
Jones said he woke up Wednesday morning confident the Vols would sign Kongbo "because of the relationships that had been built over a long period of time" with Tennessee's coaches and players.
Multiple Vols - including Jalen Reeves-Maybin, Derek Barnett, Alvin Kamara and Todd Kelly Jr. - were in contact with Kongbo earlier this week and Wednesday as his decision neared.
"We knew this was a place that Jonathan was very comfortable," Jones said. "He had established great relationships with a lot of current players, and (running backs coach and recruiting coordinator) Robert Gillespie did a tremendous job in his recruitment. So I felt very confident, but as we all know, you never know. You just look around the country at things that have gone on on signing day."
Jones said the Vols wanted to add as much speed and athleticism to the 2016 class as possible, and 11 of the 21 signees are either wide receivers or defensive backs. Byrd, who originally committed to Miami last February, could be the best of that group.
"I realized that was home now," he told the Naples (Fla.) Daily News on Wednesday. "I know it's far away from my family, but I know that's my new family now."
The speedy Williams committed to new Miami coach Mark Richt and the Hurricanes in the middle of January, but his official visit to Knoxville the following weekend swayed his choice.
Tennessee's late surge was enough to rise up the national recruiting rankings to 14th, according to Rivals.com, and 15th, according to 247sports.com.
As Jones put it, the "indescribable" run-up to signing day produced a "gratifying" finish that bolstered another solid recruiting class.
"It's been a 'round-the-clock process," he said. "We've had very few hours of sleep, whether it's traveling or finishing up the contact period and the last chance to get in front of these young men and their families, or we're working the phones and finding out what's important to the young man and following up on anything, whether it's an academic question, whether it's a program question, an athletic question.
"There's a lot that went into it. This class went right down to the wire, and we had that workmanlike approach. Our current players had a big helping hand in that, but this staff has done a tremendous job."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.