Episode 151: Welcome home, Tee Martin

GoVols247's Wes Rucker, Patrick Brown and Ryan Callahan went into Fort Rucker Studio to break down a newsy week for Tennessee football highlighted by the return of Tee Martin to Knoxville. Martin, the starting quarterback on Tennessee’s 1998 national championship team, has flirted a few times with the idea of returning to his alma mater, but second-year Vols head coach Jeremy Pruitt was the man who finally got him to pull the trigger and do it. Known as one of the top recruiters in the college football world, Martin most recently served at USC’s offensive coordinator but became available on the market after a disappointing 2018 season led to large turnover for the Trojans. Martin was never going to stay on market for long, though, and several programs tried to bring him on board, so him choosing the Vols is another coup for Pruitt, who just last week convinced offensive coordinator Jim Chaney to leave Georgia for a second tenure at Tennessee. Of course, now the Vols have one more full-time coach than allowed on their staff, so someone will have to go in order to make room for him. The departure candidates are discussed a bit in this episode. Martin is the biggest topic of conversation on this episode, but he’s far from the only one. Several Vols have now entered the NCAA’s transfer portal and seem likely to leave the program, and we discuss those players and their potential reasons for leaving. It was never a secret that Tennessee needed some players to leave the program in order to sign something resembling a full recruiting class but stay under the NCAA’s maximum allotment of 85 scholarships for next season, but now some more of those players have been identified, and we discuss their situations. We know one player who’s definitely staying with the program for next season, though. Senior-to-be wide receiver Jauan Jennings flirted with declaring for the NFL Draft but announced this week that he plans to return for his final season of eligibility. The impact of Jennings’ return is discussed in detail in this episode. It’s also been another busy week for Tennessee on the recruiting trail. The Vols are still major factors for some elite prospects, and some of those players are discussed in this episode.