Yep, I’m still here. Lawvol hasn’t kicked me out of the site yet, despite my laziness and lack of posting this spring. I literally haven’t posted anything in a month and two days. My last post focused on Tyler Smith declaring for the NBA Draft and his prospects for that draft. Since then, I’ve had to finish up the spring semester, haul through a three week min-term class, and, probably most importantly, looked for and found a place to intern for the fall in efforts to further my career. After all, I am now a senior and hopefully I’ll have graduated this time next year (yes, it’s kind of scary).

I sure haven’t missed too much the past month…

If you’re like me, you’ve long been counting down to August and football season already, and only the NBA and NHL playoffs have been offering a real distraction from that. It’s been a rather action-packed month for the Tennessee program, as there seems to be something come up just about every single day, especially this past week.

J.C. Copeland

• Recruiting: This new staff obviously spends an incredible amount of time evaluating and going through the process, and that has reaped some results the past two weeks. After this season, the offensive and defensive lines are going to be particularly thin, so those two positions without a doubt are the biggest needs in the 2010 class.

So Tennessee goes out and gets some big people. Yes way yes way Jose Jose started it off, followed by JUCO defenders Pat Harris and Bruce Irvin, Georgia J.C. Copeland, and Miami linebacker/d-end Ralph Williams. Now I must admit I hadn’t heard of any of these guys. Additionally, Jose needs to drop some weight and Harris didn’t even play football in high school. Obviously we fans have to simply take our coaches’ words for it when it comes to recruiting because it’s so hit-or-miss, but I think we need to understand that this is likely going to be a big class numbers-wise and size-wise, as in there’s going to be some beef in these commitments. I also don’t find much surprise in taking some junior college players who have the potential ability to come in and contribute right away. Then again, those guys are even more hit (Gibril Wilson) or miss (Kenny O’Neal).

Jake Heaps...

• The QB situation: In addition to the needs along the lines, the other big recruiting story line is of course the QB position, where the Vols expect to sign at least two in the 2010 class. Jake Heaps and Jesse Scroggins (their Rivals profiles are linked at the end) are the two big names, and Andrew Hendrix has been another guy whose name I’ve heard alot. I’ll keep my opinion on this simple: if Tennessee were to get Heaps or Scroggins and Hendrix or another guy, then I think you can be happy with that.

or Jesse Scroggins?

Now that is where having the situation with Robert Marve not work out hurts a little, because now after this season you’re down to Nick Stephens and Mike Rozier, the former baseball player. That’s also where B.J. Coleman bailing doesn’t help either, but the way he handled that situation of going to the Chattanooga Times-Free Press first and throwing the coaches under the bus makes me not miss him. Good riddance and enjoy playing for a really bad UT-Chattanooga program. Nevertheless, we should know something on Heaps and Scroggins soon, because Heaps has said he wants to make his decision in June and Scroggins may very well be waiting to see what Heaps does.

• The exodus: OK, players leaving is a part of any program where there’s a turnover of coaching staffs, so this was sort of expected. It happened at Alabama when Nick Saban was hired and it’s happened now with the Kiffin regime. What does it mean, exactly? Well, really outside of the Coleman departure’s effect on the QB depth, the collective contributions of the 11 leaving players isn’t much, outside of Lennon Creer and Dee Morley. Creer saw the writing on the wall with Toney Williams, Bryce Brown and David Oku joining the stable, and Morley had been walking a tight line for awhile. Losing some lineman hurts depth, but overall, how bad have the 11 departures really been? Hey, if a player isn’t going to cut it or doesn’t want to do the work that will cut it, then see ya later.

Even the new coaching staff has had a member leave this week in strength and conditioning coach Mark Smith. Obviously the AD and Kiffin had mutual disagreements of some kind with Smith and it’s unfortunate and probably a negative event, but I think Tennessee will be OK in the end. Aaron Ausmus seems like the likely replacement, but Lane needs to find one soon, since summer workouts start next week.

• Hokey Pahokee: Much. Ado. About. Nothing. No, Lane shouldn’t have said what he said and he apologized well before this got brought up again. The principal of the school and whoever else had a hand in drawing this out to the point it got to came across as desperate for some attention. The problem I had was the administration of a school denying access of specific schools to their students. In other words, if I’m a stud recruit at that Pahokee and there’s mutual interest between me and Tennessee, should the school have the right to deny UT access to me? Fortunately it’s apparently all good down there now, so hopefully UT can get another player from that talent-rich area.

Yes or no?

• Twitter-gate: Who cares? Secondary violations don’t mean a thing…unless Tennessee does it. Lane didn’t even “tweet” it, so I don’t even blink an eye to this nonsense.

On another note, what’s the deal with Twitter? I’ve been back-and-forth on whether or not I want to give in and join the craze and following some of the various athletes’ accounts would be cool, but what’s the big deal? If you’re on there, please tell me…

• Daniel Hood: This got a great deal of attention as well as it should have, so I won’t spend too much time on it. It’s a touchy subject as well, and I was skeptical at first about it. However, I feel much better about it now than I did when I first got the news the Hood was getting a scholarship. Tennessee still will have a convicted rapist on the team and opposing fans will use this against the Vols from now until the end of time, but that’s part of the consequences. The bottom line for me is that everyone who commented in stories I read who are and were much, much closer to Hood and the situation than any of us said nothing but positive things about Hood. I mean, the victim of the whole ordeal vouched for Hood. What more does it take? I think Lane and the staff and Mike Hamilton did their work on this one, so I can handle their decision.

That’s it for now. I’ll probably post something about the awesomely exciting (or “amazing,” if you agree with the slogan) NBA Playoffs. Also, this is probably old news, but if you haven’t already checked it out, Will over at Rocky Top Talk is getting into the nitty-gritty (ie, top 15) of his countdown of the 50 best games from the Philip Fulmer era. This is probably old because they started way back in January, but it’s really good stuff – the writing and story-telling is so good it might even be better than the nostalgic feelings of the good ‘ol days.

– … to me.

Images Courtesy of: VolQuest • Rivals – Jake Heaps • Rivals – Jesse Scroggins

About the Author:  I'm from Memphis but I'm now entering my third year at the University of Tennessee here in Knoxville. I am majoring in Journalism/Electronic Media and hope to go into sports broadcasting/writing/something like that. I'm a huge Vol fan and have been going to games for as long as I can remember. I started my on blog called "The View From The Hill" but moved here to Gate 21 for bigger and better things. In addition to my passion for Tennessee football and basketball, I enjoy watching the NFL and the NBA as well. Basically, sports are a big part of my life. >> Read more from this author

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