The Tennessee Vols landed their quarterback in the 2027 recruiting class when three-star Derrick Baker committed to UT in February.

Baker, who is from Alpharetta, GA, didn’t play much last fall at Milton High School due to injury, so the expectation is that he’ll rise in the recruiting rankings with a solid senior season.

The Tennessee commit, in fact, is already turning heads this summer thanks to his performance at the Overtime OT7 Playoffs.

Derrick Baker gets described in a way no Josh Heupel quarterback at Tennessee has been described before

Rivals.com’s Greg Biggins praised Baker’s “strong arm” last week and pointed out that he is “a pretty natural thrower and shows natural poise in the pocket.”

Biggins also described Baker in a way that we haven’t heard a Tennessee quarterback described during the Josh Heupel era.

“Baker is built like a linebacker but throws a really nice ball,” wrote Biggins. “He’s a specimen for sure and has one of the strongest arms in the event.”

Baker is listed at 6-foot/235 pounds by On3.

To put that in perspective, Joe Milton was listed at 6-foot-5/235 pounds when he was at Tennessee.

So yeah, Baker is built like a fire hydrant, which is unlike most of the quarterbacks we’ve seen at Tennessee under Heupel.

Hendon Hooker, whom Heupel inherited from Jeremy Pruitt, was listed at 6-foot-4/218 pounds. Nico Iamaleava was listed at 6-foot-6/215 pounds, while Joey Aguilar was listed at 6-foot-3/225 pounds. Current Vols quarterbacks George MacIntyre is listed at 6-foot-6/201 pounds and Faizon Brandon is listed at 6-foot-4/215 pounds. Colorado transfer quarterback Ryan Staub is listed at 6-foot-1/200 pounds.

I don’t know what it means, or if it means anything at all (outside of the fact that Baker should be able to hold up well when scrambling, which is necessary in the SEC). But it’s certainly a departure from the type of quarterback we’ve typically seen at Tennessee under Heupel.