Who is the best Tennessee football recruit this century?

Who is the greatest recruit Tennessee football has had this century?

The 2010s were not particularly kind to Tennessee football, but this new decade offers promise.

The Tennessee Volunteers were a perennial SEC East contender under former head coach Phillip Fulmer in the 1990s and 2000s. Despite making it to the SEC Championship game in 2007, Fulmer was ousted a year later after a down year for the football program. From 2009 to 2019, the Vols have employed four head coaches and had been a complete and total grease fire for nearly all of it.

However, the Vols seem to be heading in the right direction under third-year head coach Jeremy Pruitt. The former Alabama, Georgia and Florida State defensive coordinator was picked for the job by new athletic director Fulmer. Pruitt has alway specialized in recruiting and is a big reason why Tennessee football will be back in the 2020s. He’ll end up with more guys like Eric Berry.

Berry was the No. 3 player in the nation, the No. 1 player from Georgia and the No. 1 cornerback in the class of 2007 in the eyes of the 247Sports Composite. The Creekside High School standout from Fairburn had five offers, picking Tennessee over the Auburn Tigers, the Georgia Bulldogs, Ohio State Buckeyes and the USC Trojans. It helped that his dad James Berry played for the Vols.

Former Tennessee wide receivers/running backs coach Trooper Taylor was Berry’s primary recruiter to Tennessee. He is one of only two five-star players Taylor has ever landed. He has since followed former Tennessee offensive coordinator David Cutcliffe to the Duke Blue Devils to serve as their wide receivers coach.

While Tennessee ended up with Berry, the two other schools seriously vying for him were Auburn and Georgia. Despite Terry Price’s best efforts at Auburn and the combination of Rodney Garner and Willie Martinez at Georgia, Berry committed to Tennessee on Dec. 17, 2006 without taking an official visit. He enrolled on the Knoxville campus on June 30, 2007.

Eric Berry is the greatest recruit Tennessee football has had since 2000.

Berry had a sensational freshman season at UT, as he had 86 tackles, two for a loss of yardage, four pass breakups and five interceptions for 222 yards and a touchdown. He was named SEC Freshman Defensive Player of the Year, earning Second-Team All-SEC and a unanimous First-Team Freshman All-American. Tennessee won the SEC East that season, but lost to LSU in Atlanta.

Unfortunately, as Berry’s play progressed, the team worsened. Tennessee didn’t achieve bowl eligibility during the 2008 college football season. Fulmer was fired at the end of the year, but that didn’t stop Berry from continuing to build on his individual legacy in Knoxville. He was a unanimous All-American, First-Team All-SEC, SEC Defensive Player of the Year and took home the Jack Tatum.

By the time his junior year arrived, Berry was a proven superstar commodity in the Vols secondary. In what was his final year of college ball playing for then-head coach Lane Kiffin, Berry was a unanimous All-American for a second time. He took home the Tatum again, as well as the Jim Thorpe Award. The two-time First-Team All-SEC player decided to enter the 2010 NFL Draft.

Berry was selected with the No. 5 overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft by the Kansas City Chiefs, where he spent nine NFL seasons playing at a Pro Football Hall of Fame-level. He made five career trips to the Pro Bowl, three All-Pro First Teams, the NFL 2010s All-Decade Team and was named the 2015 NFL Comeback Player of the Year, after he came back from Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Through the 2018 NFL season, Berry has 440 total tackles, 5.5 sacks, 14 interceptions, three forced fumbles, 50 pass deflections and five defensive touchdowns. Every season Berry played in at least 15 games, he earned a Pro Bowl nod. However, he combined for only 10 games played in 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2018 due to cancer and other various injuries. He sure was great, though.

Berry is a legend not just in Knoxville, but in Kansas City as well for his elite defensive prowess.

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