UT coach Butch Jones, left, and offensive line coach Don Mahoney watch the game against Western Carolina Saturday, September 19, 2015 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tenn.KNOXVILLE - Tennessee will join college football's satellite camp party next month, when the Volunteers have set up visits to two of their most vital recruiting grounds.
Coach Butch Jones told reporters before Tuesday's Big Orange Caravan stop in Franklin, Tenn., that Tennessee has scheduled a camp June 5 at Tennessee State University in Nashville. The Vols' coaching staff also will work a camp June 13 on Georgia State University's campus in Atlanta, according to Panthers coach Trent Miles' official website.
"We've kind of joined the satellite camp parade," Jones said Tuesday night. "We're looking forward to that."
Satellite camps have been college football's biggest national storyline this offseason. During such events, a college program's staff works at a camp hosting prospects (typically in another state) or high schools or junior colleges host camps in which one or more college assistants are present. The trend began last year when Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh toured the South with a series of camps.
Harbaugh ruffled feathers among Southeastern Conference coaches with those camps and the ones he set up for this summer, and earlier this offseason the NCAA passed a ban (with the SEC among its supporters) on the events. The NCAA has rescinded the ban, though, and the camps have become the newest ploy in the world of recruiting for programs across the country, including those in the SEC.
Harbaugh reportedly has scheduled more than 25 camps in more than a dozen states and even Australia. Tennessee has no intentions of being nearly that active this summer. Last week Jones indicated that while Tennessee was continuing to work through its plan for the summer, the Vols would hold an in-state camp and stick to their "recruiting footprint" outside of Tennessee.
"We're still going through the planning phases," he said Tuesday night. "We had a plan in place early and we still do, but we will be very, very limited in the satellite camp exposure. We won't be all over the country."
Central Tennessee, which is loaded with talent for the 2017 recruiting cycle, and the sprawling Atlanta metro area have been good to the Vols in recent recruiting classes and likely will continue to be. In the past three classes, the Vols signed 16 players from Nashville, Murfreesboro and the surrounding areas in central Tennessee, plus 14 players from the Atlanta area.
Many important players for the program hail from those two areas.
"We're still kind of in the infant stages, so to speak, of putting together our satellite camps and what camps we'll work," Jones said in Franklin. "It's ever-changing. It changes hourly. There's so many camps that pop up, so the biggest challenge really is the calendar. What can really can get lost in this, first of all, is in the recruiting process we have to get players on campus. That's the most important thing for us. We have such a great product to sell from our campus, to our current players, to our facilities. They need to get to Knoxville to really meet everyone and feel the positive energy and excitement.
"Also, I don't want to be away for a month from our current football team. Everything, too, is about making our football players and our program better each and every day. It's a balancing act when you look at the satellite camps."
Nashville always seemed the most logical spot for the in-state camp, and Tennessee State as the location made sense because its athletic director is Teresa Phillips, mother of current Vols defensive end Kyle Phillips.
"It's a little different when you hold satellite camps in state," Jones said. "The rules change a little bit, but the midstate (area) is so important to us. You look at Jalen Hurd, you look at Derek Barnett, Rashaan Gaulden, Aaron Medley - I could go on and on and on - Kyle Phillips. These players have meant so much to our football program.
"We talk about owning home first and the home state, and it's a natural fit for us."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.