KNOXVILLE - Shanon Reid has little concern about the shoes into which he's stepping.
The jersey number the Tennessee freshman linebacker is inheriting might be causing him a little bit more anxiety.
One of five midterm enrollees who began their careers with the Volunteers this week, Reid will wear the No. 21 vacated by program cornerstone Jalen Reeves-Maybin, an All-Southeastern Conference performer who led Tennessee in tackles in 2014 and 2015 before two shoulder surgeries spoiled his senior season and the Vols' defense in 2016.
"There's not any pressure," Reid said Thursday in the locker room at Neyland Stadium, where the newest Vols made their media debuts. "It's just knowing that I can do the same thing that he has done even though he was great and I look up to him as a big brother. He talks to me from time to time.
"I know now I have a high expectation to hold with that number, knowing that the group of guys that's been wearing 21, not just here but in the NFL, I know I have to show out with that number."
Reid is a South Florida native who played at Dunbar High School in Fort Myers, and he's rooming with fellow freshman Deandre Johnson, a defensive lineman out of Miami. Neither of them had ever seen snow until arriving in Tennessee last weekend. It was 8 degrees in Knoxville when Reid arrived, so that was the first adjustment to his new college home.
Johnson and Reid are the sixth and seventh Floridians the Vols have added in the past two recruiting classes, and Tennessee has three other players from the Sunshine State committed in its 2017 class.
Like three of the other four early enrollees, Reid committed to Tennessee in December, and by that point the 6-foot-1, 205-pounder, a four-star prospect and the No. 238 player in the 2017 class according to 247Sports.com, was quite ready for the recruiting process to end.
"I'm so glad," Reid said. "Especially right before the recruiting ended, it was stressful. That last week everybody's trying to jump me and pull and tug on you on the last second, but I knew where home was from the beginning."
During the season Reid took official visits to Michigan, Iowa State, Tennessee and LSU and also took a late unofficial visit to nearby Miami before pulling the trigger for the Vols.
"Right before I committed, I had three more schools try to come after me," he said. "I had LSU still trying to come after me, and then I had Oregon and Florida tried to come after me at the last second, but I shut everything down. I already knew where I wanted to go. It was too late to try to take that opportunity."
The opportunity in front of Reid means more to him because of what he's coming from.
Both a cousin and a close friend of his were innocent victims of gun violence, and Reid views his chance with the Vols as a way to provide an example to younger kids in his hometown of what an alternative path looks like.
Reid certainly would like play sooner than later, and playing time could be available at a position where Tennessee was ravaged by injuries to Reeves-Maybin, Darrin Kirkland Jr., Quart'e Sapp and Cortez McDowell.
"Hopefully I get into the rotation a little bit over spring," he said. "I've got a great group of guys in front of me that I can look up to like D.K. Just knowing those guys, they can teach me around the ropes. It's the SEC, so it's big-time, and they've been in front of that atmosphere and crowd before, so at least I won't be alone."
Right now Reid is built like a safety, and though he'll need to add some weight to look more like an SEC outside linebacker, his speed and nose for the football made him an attractive prospect for the Vols.
The same could be said of Reeves-Maybin when he began his Tennessee career in 2013, and Reid laughed when he explained how his predecessor gave him his blessing to have his number on Twitter recently.
"I was talking to him," he said, "and I was like, 'I'm getting 21.' He was like, 'I see you, little bro.' I was like, dang, I can actually talk to (him), especially if I need some advice or anything, I can come to him, because he's been there done that."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.