Josh Dobbs tells the story of decommitting from Arizona State and signing with Tennessee
Diehard Tennessee Vols will likely remember former UT quarterback Josh Dobbs' recruiting story. In early 2013, just a couple of months after being hired by Tennessee, then Vols head coach Butch Jones managed to flip Dobbs from Arizona State just before signing day (which was only in February back then). Dobbs was a four-star recruit […]
Diehard Tennessee Vols will likely remember former UT quarterback Josh Dobbs' recruiting story.
In early 2013, just a couple of months after being hired by Tennessee, then Vols head coach Butch Jones managed to flip Dobbs from Arizona State just before signing day (which was only in February back then).
Dobbs was a four-star recruit who also could've played college baseball.
Late last week, Dobbs was traded from the Cleveland Browns to the Arizona Cardinals. On Wednesday, he met with reporters for the first time since landing with the Cardinals. And a reporter with a good memory quickly asked Dobbs about his decision to decommit from Arizona State and sign with Tennessee.
"So that was the first thing I thought, you know, as fate would have it, I had to get to Arizona somehow," said Dobbs. "So for those who don't know, I was committed to Arizona State for eight months. And this was back when signing days were in February. So I had the cliche story of decommitting the day before signing day and going to Tennessee which definitely was hurtful to ASU faithful. But it's good to be out here now. I was very close. Coach (Mike) Norvell was the OC at that time. I really was looking forward to playing for him. We spent a lot of time together throughout the recruitment process."
"I ended up going on my official visit to Tennessee and I just really loved it," added Dobbs. "It was obviously geographically closer to home being from Alpharetta, Georgia. And I had an opportunity to play a little earlier in my career at University of Tennessee than ASU — although they both had tremendous aerospace engineering programs. Which was really important to me. So I was really close. I was really close, but made it out here now."
Dobbs was right about getting to play early at Tennessee. The Georgia native started four games as a true freshman and five games as a sophomore before taking over as Tennessee's full-time starter for his junior and senior seasons.
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Featured image via Caitie McMekin/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK
