3/30
3/14
Quick Links
Gridscape
govols.com
Tennesseean
Chatt
Times/FP
Alliance
Sports
UTFootball.com
Official UT
Site
VolunteerInsider
Vols
to the Wall
Volunteer
Gameday
RJ's
UT Vols #1
Cyber
Rocky Top
SEC Sports
JP
Sports (SEC)
WNOX
(audio)
WGOW
(audio)
WLAC
(audio)
WHBQ
(audio)
Visitor Number
Since 31 May 98
Maintained by Jumpmaster
30 Mar 99: I don't have a lot of time for an update today, but wanted to let visitors know that I have put a few new names on the Targets page.
Spring practice is in full swing at Knoxville, with the first major spring scrimmage to be held on Friday. The defending national champions drew praise from the coaching staff for excellent off-season work that has left the team even stronger than they were in January. Several redshirts are catching the coaches' eyes, including John Henderson, Rashad Moore, Keyon Whiteside, Will Ofenheusle, Leonard Scott, and Joey Mathews.
Fans can follow spring practice closely by using the links provided in the left margin of this page. Your daily stops should include govols.com, The Tennessean, Chattanooga Times-Free Press, and VolunteerInsider. Some spring practice articles have appeared on Alliance Sports Vol Net as well. I also suggest using the WNOX audio link to listen to Jimmy Hyams, Brent Hubbs and John Wilkerson for up-to-the minute practice reports. WNOX Sports Talk is from 3:15-7:15 pm ET daily. Hubbs' practice reports are usually given live from campus toward the end of the program.
19 Mar 99: The player that I expect to be the #1 Prospect in Tennessee for the 2000 signing year is Albert Means of Memphis Trezevant. The 6-foot-6, 305-lb Means is amazingly fast (4.8 forty) for such a huge man, and has been named one ot the Top 25 seniors-to-be in the country by NRA's Bobby Burton. As a junior, Means had four interceptions and 16 sacks. He played middle linebacker at around 300 pounds. Can he run? He returned one of his interceptions 60 yards for a touchdown!
Division 1-A coaches are beating a path to Means' door. He has attracted the attention of the most elite of major college football programs: Florida St, Notre Dame, Alabama, Ohio St, Michigan, and of course, home-state Tennessee. Means and his high school head coach, Lynn Lang, plan to attend three football camps this summer. They have not yet decided exactly which camps Albert will attend.
18 Mar 99: There
are several 
names added
to the Targets page today.
Notice that there are dates next to the "Targets" and "Verbals" buttons. These dates indicate the last time that new data was posted on those pages. Check these dates when you visit the site, and you'll know when I have put something new on these tables.
Ronald Buckwalter, the Philadelphia judge who struck down NCAA Prop 16, declaring the 820 SAT minimum score biased and unfairly arbitrary, has rejected the NCAA's request to stay his ruling. It is now up to the 300-plus member schools of the NCAA to set their own eligibility standards for incoming freshman athletes. This situation could continue until October, when the NCAA hopes to have new standards approved and in place.
A little additional info about a couple of East Tennessee prospects who are seniors-to-be. Bryan Sharpe of Kingston was First Team Class 3A All-State as a junior, rushing for 1,387 yards as a fullback. The 6-2, 220-lb Sharpe has 4.6 speed in the 40 and was named the East Tenn Player of the Year in 1998.
Cleveland's Demetrius Fields will be one of the most sought-after prospects in the Volunteer State this year. Over the past two seasons, the 6-0, 200-lb Fields has rushed for nearly 3,000 yards on 296 carries, an average of about 10 yards per carry. He has sprinter's speed at 4.4 in the forty. Fields struggles somewhat with his academics and only scored 13 on his first ACT attempt. If "Da Meat" can get his classwork in order, he is sure to garner a scholarship to play Division 1-A football.
One of the best running backs in the Southeast this fall will be Sumter, SC's Jamacia Jackson. The 6-0, 200-lb Jackson runs a 4.5 forty and piled up over 2,100 yards as a junior, scoring 34 touchdowns. Another top-notch tailback prospect from the Palmetto state will be Preston Portee (5-11, 205, 4.4). Portee, who plays for North Central HS in Kershaw, SC, has been named one of the Top 100 players in the nation on Gridiron Greats' preseason list.
The Lady Vols face Virginia Tech on Saturday in the East Regional semifinals at Greensboro, NC. A victory over the Lady Hokies would send Tennessee to the regional final against either Old Dominion or Duke. There are no surprises so far in the Women's NCAA Tournament, as the top four seeds from each region have advanced to the Sweet 16.
14 Mar 99: There are numerous additions to the site today for the football recruitnicks. First, you'll now notice that when you click on "Targets" or "Verbals," you'll get brand-new information for the Year 2000. The information from last year has been retired to the "archives" section. The Y2K recruiting race is officially in full swing here at Jumpmaster's site. Enjoy!
Another new addition you'll want to check out is the page that loads when you click "Signees." Several folks have asked for information about ranking of recruiting classes. I've posted some information on that subject, and links to even more related data. If you're one of those fans that enjoys rankings and comparisons by the so-called "Gurus," you definitely need to visit this section.
The Vols' mens basketball team was blown out today by Southwest Missouri St, 81-51, in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament. Despite this disappointment, Jerry Green's Vols won the SEC East title for the first time, won UT's first "Big Dance" game since 1983, swept Kentucky, and were one of only two SEC teams with a winning road record in conference play. Congratulations to the team on a tremendously successful season.
The Lady Vols' quest to win a fourth straight National Championship got off on the right foot last night, with a 113-54 win over Appalachian St in Knoxville. The Ladies did have a bit of bad luck as starter Semeka Randall suffered a badly sprained ankle, and may be lost for the remainder of the tournament.
When spring football practice begins in a little more than a week, one of John Chavis's first orders of business will be finding a potential starting Middle Linebacker, as well as a couple of able backups. This task has recently become more difficult with the loss of two of the leading candidates: Shawn Johnson, a senior with four years in Chavis's system, has quit football and gone on medical scholarship; while junior Chris Ramseur, who logged the most snaps behind Al Wilson at MLB last year, has been suspended by Coach Fulmer due to academic shortcomings. Ramseur will most likely correct his deficiencies and return to the team, but he will have to hustle to make it back in time for spring drills.
Just about a week ago, a Philadelphia judge
made a potentially landmark ruling against the NCAA, declaring that Prop
16, the rule governing freshman eligibility requirements for athletes,
was discriminatory against two African-American basketball players.
Relying on the NCAA's own documents and internal memos, the judge felt
that the standardized test component of Prop 16 was racially and culturally
biased, and the 820 minimum SAT score was unfairly "arbitrary."
Go
here to read the online article about the case from Washington Post.
If this ruling stands (the NCAA has appealed) an extra year of eligility
could be restored for five Vol football players, and at least one UT signee
could benefit in his quest to become academically qualified.
7 Mar 99:
Be sure to
click on the new "SIGNEES" button in the upper left section of this page.
I have added new pages for the 1996 and 1997 Vol signing classes, complete
with detailed Bio's from official UT press releases. Jumpmaster's
site can now boast of a complete history of Tennessee football recruiting
for the past four years, with almost 100 individual player biographies.
Well, Tennessee
suffered a disappointing loss to Mississippi St Friday in the Vols' opening
game of the SEC Tournament. The Bulldogs took the 62-56 victory on
an afternoon when the Vols suffered through a horrendous perimeter shooting
performance, going 4 of 29 on their three-point attempts. Tennessee
was outrebounded and outhustled by State, just as they were in a home loss
to the Bulldogs last month. State went on to lose in overtime to
Arkansas yesterday in the semifinals. Arkansas will face Kentucky
in today's Championship Game at the Georgia Dome. The Wildcats upset
regular-season Champ Auburn yesterday. It was only the third loss
of the season for the Tigers, with two of those defeats coming at the hands
of Kentucky.
Shifting gears back
to recruiting...but staying with basketball...here's an update on UT roundball
recruiting. Tennessee has an outstanding group of signees coming
in who will be eligible to begin competing in November. The jewel
of the class is former Nashville Pearl-Cohn forward Ron Slay (6-8),
who has played his senior season for basketball factory Oak Hill Academy,
VA. Lots of help is also on the way at the guard position, as UT
will add 6-1 Harris Walker of Hargrave Military Academy, VA; 6-2
Jonathan Higgins of Shaker Heights, OH; and 6-2 Terrence Woods
of Memphis. In addition, Jenis Grindstaff, a 6-2 guard who
transferred from West Virginia, will begin playing next season.
The fifth player
who inked with the Vols in last year's early signing period was 6-9 post
player Carlton Aaron of Chesapeake, VA. Unfortunately, it
appears that Aaron isn't going to qualify academically. That's where
Marcus Haislip of Marshall County, TN comes into the picture.
The 6-8, 210-lb Haislip is also a highly regarded post prospect, but he,
too, has battled academic concerns...until recently. Haislip scored
19 on his latest ACT and now projects as a full qualifier. Numerous
schools are scrambling to get involved with Haislip, but it looks like
Tennessee is the team to beat.
Alabama 65, Georgia 58
Mississippi St 76, Vanderbilt 58
Ole Miss 64, South Carolina 60
Florida 97, LSU 75
Today's Second Round Games:
Alabama vs. Auburn, 1:00pm ET
Mississippi St vs. Tennessee, 3:30pm ET
Ole Miss vs. Kentucky, 7:30pm ET
Florida vs. Arkansas, 9:45pm ET
3 Mar 99: Exactly one
month after signing day, and already some major news to report on the Y2K
Recruiting Front. Tennessee has received an early verbal commitment
from one of the top junior prospects in the Volunteer State. DL
Brad Hilsher (6-5, 255, 4.8) of Maryville High School told UT
coaches that he will sign with the Vols next February. Hilsher made
All-State as a junior, helping Maryville capture the 4A State Championship.
Go
here to read the govols.com article about Hilsher's commitment.
In other significant news, Coach Fulmer
announced yesterday that Dan Brooks, the Vols' defensive line coach
and one of UT's best recruiters, would take on the added duties of Recruiting
Coordinator. He replaces Randy Sanders as RC, now that Sanders has
become the offensive coordinator.
Also, in a move that has been expected
for several weeks, defensive coordinator John Chavis was officially
named Assistant Head Coach by Fulmer. Chavis takes over this post
in the place of David Cutcliffe, who took the Head Coaching job at Ole
Miss in early December.
24 Feb 99: "Act like
you've been there before." We've all heard that phrase, aimed at
a player who dances like a chicken after scoring a touchdown, or a team's
fans who can't seem to handle success. As Tennessee fans enjoying
a National Championship, it's important for us to remember that we have
"been there before." It was with this idea in mind that I wanted
to educate visitors to my website on the proud history and tradition that
is, and has been for many decades, Tennessee Volunteer Football.
Read and enjoy Part II of my series, the Golden Years of General Neyland.
21 Feb 99: I don't have a lot of time for an update, but did want to share some items of interest I found on an Ohio State site, written by Bill Kurelic, the Midwest recruiting guru.
OL Michael Munoz (6-6, 305, 5.1) told Kurelic that he has already chosen five schools as finalists: Ohio State, Tennessee, Michigan, Penn State, and Florida State. Mike is the son of NFL Hall-of-Famer Anthony Munoz, and attends school at Cincinnati Moeller. He has a younger sister, Michelle, who is projected as a national quality basketball player and is interested in Tennessee also.
QB Damon Dowdell (6-2, 190, 4.5) plays for Henry Ford High School in Detroit, MI. Dowdell threw for almost 1,800 yards as a junior, completing 54% of his passes. He added another 580 yards rushing. He's looking at Tennessee, Syracuse, Ohio St, Florida and Michigan St. One of Dowdell's teammates, and his favorite target last season, was TE Eric Knott (6-4, 235, 4.55). Knott likes a number of schools, including Michigan and Michigan St, Florida St, and North Carolina. His early favorite, though, is Tennessee. He told Kurelic, "I'd have to give a little edge to Tennessee. I'm going to go to their camp this summer."
Unless Coach Fulmer realigns recruiting territories, all three of these midwest prospects will be recruited by Vol Offensive Line Coach Mike Barry.
Congratulations to the Tennessee men's basketballers. They beat South Carolina in Columbia yesterday afternoon to improve to 18-7 (10-4 SEC East). The victory, combined with a loss earlier in the day by Kentucky at Arkansas, pulled the Vols into a first-place tie with Kentucky in the East. The Vols play Georgia at Athens Tuesday night on ESPN, but no matter what happens against the Dawgs, Tennessee can win the division outright with a win over Kentucky in Knoxville on Feb 28. The regular-season finale between the Vols and Wildcats will be nationally televised on CBS.
The exciting 1999 college football recruiting season has come to an end, and those of us who follow Vol recruiting can get back to normal for a couple of months. I have enjoyed tracking Tennessee recruiting efforts, and I appreciate the support and emails from the frequent visitors to my website. As I prepare to track Volunteer recruiting efforts for the year 2000, I am instituting a few changes which I hope will make the site more user-friendly and make things a little easier for us all.
NEW MAIN PAGE
The new main page of the site will have fewer graphics and should load much more quickly. I have done away with the gossip page, and will instead put updates on this main page, like the text you are reading now. This will allow the visitor to get the latest recruiting update with no need to click another link and wait for an additional page to load. I won't make any promises that I can't keep, but it is my intent to update at least once a week, probably on weekends. Updates will be much more frequent when the 99 football season ends, right up through signing day.
MESSAGE BOARD
Another key strategy
in improving my ability to provide updated info to visitors will be an
active recruiting message board. The success of this strategy depends
on you, the visitors. I hope the message board will become a place
where ALL of you post recruiting information, and share knowledge with
each other. The message board will also provide an opportunity for
me to post information and updates from any computer with internet access.
This will be helpful for those times when, like last year, I am too busy
to make time to update the web pages and upload them to the Geocities server.
Click the graphic below to visit the board, Volunteer Coalition Forum.
Feel free to leave a post and converse with fellow Vol fans and recruitnicks.
