Tennessee football: Vols trending in right direction for top in-state recruit

The Tennessee football program is making great strides to keep this top 2022 talent in-state.

It is still early in the recruiting process, but it looks like the Tennessee football program could end up landing one of the better players in-state in outside linebacker Elijah Herring.

According to the 247Sports Composite, Herring is the No. 29 player from Tennessee, the No. 49 player at his position group and the No. 729 player nationally. The Murfreesboro, Tennessee native is 6-foot-2 and 225 pounds. He has 13 official offers but is looking primarily at joining these four programs to play his college football: Coastal Carolina, Michigan, Mississippi State and Tennessee.

With the 247Sports staff having already made two predictions for Herring, the recruiting service is projecting the 2022 outside linebacker will inevitably make his way to Knoxville.

Tennessee football: Will the Vols get Elijah Herring’s verbal?

With Volunteers defensive coordinator Tim Banks serving as Herring’s primary recruit to Tennessee, this helps his chances of ending up at Knoxville. Banks most recently worked at Penn State, where he was able to land one four-star recruit after another. Given that Heupel is a former Heisman runner-up quarterback, Banks’ relationship with Herring will be crucial in landing him.

Though it will be hard for Heupel to catch Florida and Georgia in the SEC East, it would serve him to keep as many of the best players in-state as possible. Even though Tennessee shares the border with more states than any in the country, this is what it will take for the Vols to ever get back to their glory days under Johnny Majors and Phillip Fulmer. They must protect their borders.

For the time being, Herring to Tennessee football program seems like a pretty good bet to make.

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