Caleb Herring and Arion Carter are linebackers at Tennessee who are practicing this spring as midyear enrollees.
Their respective careers have yet to be written in Knoxville, but they are already being recognized as a four-star duo that got Volunteers recruiting back into the Volunteer State. Herring and Carter were the state’s top two prospects in the 2023 signing cycle, according to the 247Sports.com composite rankings.
“Tennessee is big on in-state guys, and they want to keep you in-state,” Herring said this week in a news conference. “You can clearly see that this year with some of the top guys.”
Herring, a 6-foot-5, 226-pound edge rusher out of Murfreesboro Riverdale, committed to the Vols last April, essentially assuring coach Josh Heupel that he would not have to endure another year of struggles within state borders. Tennessee’s program unraveled in January 2021, when former coach Jeremy Pruitt and linebacker coaches Shelton Felton and Brian Niedermeyer were terminated amid university and NCAA investigations into recruiting violations.
Multiple marquee players left the program through the transfer portal, and even Heupel’s 7-6 debut season later that year couldn’t keep the premier recruits home. Tennessee did not land one top-10 talent from within its state during the 2022 signing cycle, with Powell defensive lineman Walter Nolen picking Texas A&M, Martin quarterback Ty Simpson choosing Alabama and Nashville Pearl-Cohn receiver Barion Brown opting for Kentucky.