ESPN continues to disrespect top recruits committed to the Tennessee Vols
It's starting to feel like ESPN has a company-wide rule that states if a talented high school recruit commits to the Tennessee Vols, then they automatically drop in ESPN's recruiting rankings. We saw it with Vols quarterback Nico Iamaleava during the 2023 recruiting cycle. Iamaleava was rated by On3 as the No. 1 overall recruit […]
It's starting to feel like ESPN has a company-wide rule that states if a talented high school recruit commits to the Tennessee Vols, then they automatically drop in ESPN's recruiting rankings.
We saw it with Vols quarterback Nico Iamaleava during the 2023 recruiting cycle. Iamaleava was rated by On3 as the No. 1 overall recruit in the nation.
ESPN, however, rated Iamaleava as the No. 23 overall player in the 2023 recruiting class, well below fellow 2023 five-star quarterback Arch Manning (ESPN had Arch at No. 5 overall, despite playing against very weak high school competition).
2025 five-star quarterback George MacIntyre, who committed to Tennessee in January, is the latest Vols commit to get disrespected by ESPN.
MacIntyre is rated by On3 as the No. 12 overall player in the 2025 recruiting class. 247Sports has MacIntyre as the No. 10 overall player.
ESPN, meanwhile, doesn't even have MacIntyre as a five-star recruit. Instead, they have the elite quarterback rated as a four-star recruit and they rank him as the No. 56 overall recruit in the nation.
Not many folks pay attention to ESPN's recruiting rankings — On3 and 247Sports as the standard when it comes to rating high school recruits — but it's still a slap in the face of players like Iamaleava and MacIntyre. And it's baffling why ESPN rates those players so low.
It's not fair to suggest that ESPN has some sort of bias against Tennessee commits, but I can certainly understand why some fans might feel that way.
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