Josh Heupel just made the exact same choice that Jeremy Pruitt once made at Tennessee that still haunts Vols fans to this day
Josh Heupel and the Tennessee Volunteers made a decision this offseason that is eerily similar to a decision that Jeremy Pruitt and his staff made on Rocky Top a little over six years ago.
Tennessee Vols head coach Josh Heupel and his coaching staff made a choice this offseason that is very similar to an unpopular choice that Jeremy Pruitt and his staff made during their time in Knoxville.
The decision worked out horribly for Pruitt. And while that doesn’t mean it will play out the same way for Heupel, it’s still eerily similar.
Tennessee didn’t offer an in-state wide receiver that just committed to Georgia
2027 four-star wide receiver Jamir Dean flipped his commitment from Penn State to Georgia on Monday.
Dean, 6-foot-2/180 pounds from Alcoa, TN, is rated by 247Sports as the No. 18 wide receiver in the nation and the No. 5 player in the state of Tennessee.
The four-star recruit plays high school football 20 minutes south of Neyland Stadium, but despite the proximity to Tennessee, Dean, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel, has never received an offer from the Vols.
Dean finished last season with 53 receptions for 1,141 yards and 16 touchdowns.
It’s unclear why Tennessee didn’t pursue Dean, but this feels similar to when Pruitt and his staff failed to aggressively pursue wide receiver Ladd McConkey, who went on to become a star at Georgia and is now a key player for the Los Angeles Chargers.
McConkey didn’t grow up in Tennessee — he’s from Chatsworth, GA, which is just south of the Tennessee border — but he did grow up rooting for the Vols. And he badly wanted an offer from Tennessee that never came.
From Dawg Nation: The Vols were his team. McConkey said back then if they were to offer, it would be “something special” that he’d have to think long and hard about. “He probably would have gone to Tennessee if they would have offered him,” (Preston) Poag said. “He sure loved Tennessee growing up.” Jim Chaney, the UT offensive coordinator at the time, came down to Chatsworth to see him. Yet he was in and out and 30 minutes. Tops. He didn’t take any pictures or see the UT stuff in the McConkey home.
“When I got the offer from Georgia, Tennessee came like a couple of days later,” said McConkey in 2023. “And they were like, ‘Hey, we want you to come up this weekend’. So I was like oh yeah, it’s about to happen…they’re about to offer me. I [was] going to commit right then. Really, I probably would’ve committed right then if they would’ve let me. But I got up there and they were like, ‘It’s so late in the process, we’ve already offered all the receivers and we think we’re going to get them, so we can’t really give you anything’. They were like, ‘But if anything changes on signing day, we’ll call you’. And I [didn’t] really like that. So I woke up right before school, at like 7 AM, and signed my papers with Georgia. I didn’t even want to be put in the position of one of them not signing and them (Tennessee) calling.”
Pruitt and the Vols signed Jalin Hyatt, Malachi Wideman, Jimmy Holiday, and Jimmy Calloway during that recruiting cycle.
I’m not saying Heupel and the Vols should’ve pursued Dean this spring. I don’t know what all went into their evaluation. But Georgia clearly likes him. And if he ends up becoming a star in Athens (and in the NFL), there are going to be a lot of questions about why Tennessee didn’t offer a four-star receiver in their backyard.
Heupel and his staff can’t sign every player that grows up around Knoxville. Tough decisions have to be made at times. It’ll be interesting to look back in a few years and see if Heupel made the right call here or if it’s a decision he ends up regretting.