KNOXVILLE - The decision of former SEC-freshman-team linebacker Darrin Kirkland Jr. to leave Tennessee as a graduate transfer exacerbates a characteristic that new coach Jeremy Pruitt pointed out about his team this past week.
The Volunteers, Pruitt noted, are light on upperclassmen, which is why the coach believes the addition of graduate transfer quarterback Keller Chryst will benefit Tennessee - regardless of whether Chryst wins the starting job at his position.
"I think it will be good for our football team, because we've got a young football team," Pruitt said during the Big Orange Caravan stop in Atlanta. "We only have nine seniors. I think some of these guys need experience. It can help them."
Kirkland would have been a redshirt junior this season, and his rare combination of experience and talent made him a likely leader for a team that did not have an established nucleus of player leadership this spring.
As Tennessee navigated five weeks of football practices this spring, Pruitt expressed curiosity about what the eventual makeup of the team's leadership will be.
"Do we have guys that have leadership that can affect everybody else that way?" Pruitt asked after one spring workout in April. "Do they even know how to do it? And if they don't, we have to be the ones that teach them."
Kirkland's departure also leaves the Vols with just 10 players remaining from a 30-man 2015 signing class that was rated fourth in the nation by 247Sports. The erosion of that class - once regarded as the group that would re-establish the Volunteers as a national power - is a reason why younger Tennessee players are emerging as the face of the program in the preseason.
Sophomore running back Ty Chandler, who started one game in 2017, is featured on the cover of SEC-centered football preview magazines distributed in Knoxville by Athlon Sports, Lindy's and Street and Smith.
Chandler could be poised for a breakout season, but the speedster's exact role under a coaching staff that prefers power running backs is not yet clear. Instead, his status as a cover model appears rooted in the reality that several unanswered questions remain about whom the Vols will rely on to make plays in 2018.
Redshirt junior receiver Jauan Jennings or sophomore offensive tackle Trey Smith have the talent to be difference-makers for the 2018 team, but their statuses for the upcoming season are not 100 percent clear. Redshirt sophomore quarterback Jarrett Guarantano could also have been a magazine cover candidate, but he faces a position battle with Chryst that Pruitt has indicated will last throughout preseason practice and possibly beyond.
With the arrival of Chryst and graduate transfer running back Madre London, and barring any more departures, it appears the Vols will have 10 scholarship seniors when preseason practices begin the first week of August.
Just five of them have been regular starters during their Tennessee careers. That's why the addition of Chryst - in whatever role he ends up filling - matters to Pruitt.
"Well, I think in everything that you do, you probably get better at it the longer you do it," Pruitt said of Stanford's former starting quarterback. "Based off his age, his experience, he has some wisdom. So that'll probably help in preparation."
Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/volsupdate.