Vols T logoKNOXVILLE – Steve Stripling readily admitted he was as nervous as any other assistant coach on Tennessee’s football staff during the final couple of weeks before national signing day.
After all, when Montgomery Bell Academy’s Jashon Robertson flipped his verbal commitment to the Volunteers from Vanderbilt, where he had initially pledged nearly two years ago, he became the eighth potential defensive lineman in Tennessee’s 2014 recruiting class.
And some other programs made sure the Vols’ commitments knew that.
“Totally sweating, on really all of them,” the defensive line coach said Wednesday when the ink had dried on signing day. “I get it. The message was, ‘Tennessee’s taking all these D-linemen.’ I get it, but once they understood [it], the picture was there’s great opportunity.
“Nobody has a better opportunity than we do, when you talk about the six young men that did the majority of playing [last season] graduated. There’s great opportunity here, so there’s two ways to look at it, and they were obviously listening to a different way until they understood our way.”