Tennessee has a game plan for football recruiting changes

The Tennessee football coaches have been developing a game plan for years.

Anticipating there would be changes made in recruiting, they were not caught off guard when the wheels were set in motion.

Last Friday, the NCAA Division I Council passed a comprehensive package of rule changes for Bowl Subdivision teams that included an early signing period and earlier official visits, and allows schools to hire a 10th assistant coach.

The rules also place limits on hiring individuals associated with a recruit and caps a school’s signing class to 25 players.

The changes are subject to final approval by the Division I Board of Directors, which meets April 26.

The early signing period would allow players to sign with a school as early as December of their senior year. If approved, it would take effect Aug. 1.

“The positive is for a young man that knows where he wants to go, he is able to sign and move forward. But one thing we have to be cognizant of is I spoke about in-season visits,” UT coach Butch Jones said Tuesday after his team completed its 13th spring practice. “Again, everything is about the high school coaches and respecting their program as well, and I hope we don’t get to the point where high school seniors are taking their visits and putting their high school football team second nature, so to speak. We have to make sure as a profession we don’t allow that to happen.”

The earlier signing period won’t have much effect on how Tennessee offensive coordinator Larry Scott operates.

“To me, the way you are supposed to be recruiting anyway is you recruit everybody like it’s an early signing period. If they happen to sign a piece of paper, they sign it. If not, let’s keep recruiting, let’s keep rolling,” Scott said. “So I think for a lot of people what I think it will do is it will adjust your timetable and your schedule a little bit as far as bringing kids on visits and getting them on campus and those type of things.”

The new rules would allow recruits to take official visits earlier, with trips to campus beginning April 1 and running through late June. The changes could stretch the workload of coaching staffs and take some time away from family.

“We pretty much work the weekend anyways, but I think we do have to get our hands around the calendar moving forward,” Jones said. “This won’t affect us this year, but we have to look forward to that. For us, we have a beautiful campus and we’re able to do visits year-round.”

Like nearly every head coach, Jones was in favor of adding a 10th assistant to the staff. He hasn’t determined how UT will fill the role yet.

“The great thing about that is we have some time to really research and look into that. It’s something that we have been prepared for for a long time,” Jones said. “Everything is about structure and your staff and what’s needed and kind of a balancing act from personality to recruiting to positional-wise.”

Jones wasn't pleased with all the rule changes, but realizes there is no perfect legislation to fit the needs of every FBS program in the country.

“Just like anything, you have to adapt and adjust. We will see how it plays itself out. The one thing I was extremely disappointed in was the ability of high school football coaches to work your camp," Jones said. "We are in a profession where it’s development, relationships, and I have a tremendous amount of friends just like every coach in the profession that coaches high school football, and it’s a great time to get together and talk football and work on the field together.”

Details for spring game 

Jones provided some more details about how UT will conduct the Orange and White Game on Saturday (SEC Network, 4 p.m. ET).

The Vols will have offense vs. defense when it does actually scrimmage with a modified scoring format. Jones said it will be similar to last year’s game.

“Pretty much the same format. We’ll have the Circle of Life, some one-on-one, have our quarterback challenge — with a little new wrinkle this year — and punter challenge and play football,” Jones said. “And it’s a great evaluation tool for us to see how our players perform. A lot of individuals, you know, they haven’t performed much, so this is a great opportunity for them and obviously a great opportunity to our fans, and we are looking forward to it.”

Many happy returns, another potential loss

With only one more practice remaining before the spring game, the Vols are starting to have some players return to action after having offseason surgery.

“They are able to get to hear the new coaches and get on the field and do the drill and do some team situations as well,” Jones said. “So I think that has been healthy for us and very beneficial to us moving forward to our offseason strength and conditioning program.”

Running back John Kelly went in the opposite direction. The junior suffered an undisclosed injury last Thursday and may be sidelined for the remainder of spring.

“We’ll see. A lot of it is precautionary and we have to get him ready for the long season ahead too and preparing this football team for 2017," Jones said. “So we will see where is at for Saturday and make that determination later in the week.”