Tennessee is no longer in the mix for a 5-star recruit that Josh Heupel visited earlier this year, and it looks like it’s because of NIL
The Tennessee Volunteers were named at one point as a team to watch for 2027 five-star cornerback Joshua Dobson, but that is longer the case as the talented recruits inches closer to a decision.
Back in January, the Tennessee Vols appeared to be seriously in the mix for 2027 five-star cornerback Joshua Dobson.
But that’s no longer the case just a few months later.
Dobson, 6-foot-1/185 pounds from Cornelius, NC, is rated in 247Sports’ composite rankings as the No. 3 cornerback in the nation and the No. 11 overall player in the 2027 recruiting class.
Vols head coach Josh Heupel visited Dobson in North Carolina in early January.
Dobson was then expected to visit Tennessee for the Vols’ basketball game against the Kentucky Wildcats on January 17, but he ended up canceling that visit.
When Dobson released his top five schools in April, the Vols didn’t make the cut.
So how did Tennessee go from being very much in the mix to being completely out of the picture?
Only Dobson knows for sure, but it sounds like NIL was the top reason.
Joshua Dobson seems to be prioritizing NIL in his recruitment
Several national analysts predicted in March that Lane Kiffin and the LSU Tigers would land Dobson.
But now LSU appears to be out of the mix, too.
According to On3, discussions over NIL between Dobson and LSU “broke down”.
“The Bayou Bengals, who were at one point considered his leader, have dropped down after discussion between his agent and LSU over NIL broke down, according to The Bengal Tiger’s Shea Dixon,” wrote On3’s Keegan Pope this week.
Dobson was supposed to take an official visit to LSU in June, but he’s now planning to visit Michigan instead.
The report from On3 about Dobson and LSU combined with the recent news that Tennessee is planning to be more judicious in how much money they’re paying high school recruits makes it easy to surmise that Dobson’s agent and the Vols were simply too far apart in NIL negotiations for UT to be a legitimate contender in this battle.
These are the types of decisions that college football programs have to make.
Roster-building in the current era of college football is now all about building the best team you can afford.