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Wiedmer: Count UTC’s Rusty Wright among those impressed by UT’s recruiting haul

Staff file photo by C.B. Schmelter / UTC football coach Rusty Wright, left, shakes hands with Tennessee counterpart Jeremy Pruitt before their teams' 2019 game in Knoxville. Staff file photo by C.B. Schmelter / UTC football coach Rusty Wright, left, shakes hands with Tennessee counterpart Jeremy Pruitt before their teams' 2019 game in Knoxville.

By Mark Wiedmer May 11, 2020 5 min read

And for his next bit of recruiting magic, University of Tennessee football coach Jeremy Pruitt has found a loophole in the NCAA rule book that will allow him to bring back quarterback Peyton Manning for one more year.

OK, so we kid. Even Pruitt isn’t getting a ghost year of eligibility for Manning.

But that doesn’t mean that what the third-year boss of the Big Orange is doing in putting together what just might become the nation’s top recruiting class by the early signing period in December isn’t hugely impressive.

Just ask University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach Rusty Wright, who has watched the Volunteers already receive nonbinding verbal commitments from 21 highly coveted players, including 19 out-of-state prospects, which is more than any other Football Bowl Subdivision program has total commitments.

“It’s crazy,” Wright said Monday afternoon. “They’ve done a tremendous job. I’m sure it’s a credit to a lot of legwork. They probably had a good feeling about all this before (the coronavirus pandemic) started.”