Off The Hook Sports continues its 2022 Tennessee football preseason preview on the top 25 impact players for the Vols this upcoming season.

Coming in at No. 8 is senior LEO Byron Young

Past Performance

Athlon Sports thinks Byron Young is pretty good at football.

So does everyone else watching Tennessee’s senior weakside rusher. And there’s a strong chance that even with his past performance for Tennessee in mind, he’s about to get even better.

Athlon tabbed Young as an All-SEC first-team selection, which is high praise for the former JUCO standout from Georgia Military College in Milledgeville. He was a force there, tallying 31 tackles, 11 tackles for loss and seven sacks in 2019, missing the 2020 season due to Covid-19. That strong season led to him being ranked the No. 1 weakside defensive end and the No. 11 overall JUCO prospect in the nation when he signed with the Vols in December of 2020.

Young continued his strong play at the next level, thriving as LEO (Weakside hybrid linebacker/defensive end) for the Vols. He became one of the top linemen in the SEC after finding his footing. He ranked first on the team in total tackles for loss with 11.5, all while missing the first few games of the season after being ruled ineligible for a two-game season at a prep school that was suspended in 2017.

And despite most of his work coming on the weak side, Young totaled 46 tackles on the season in eight total starts and tied Jeremy Banks for the most sacks on the team with 5.5.

Yeah, pretty good.

Opportunities

2022 should be the year of Byron Young and Tyler Baron for Tennessee’s defense.

Both return from monster seasons in 2021, as highlighted above in Young’s case. The Vols will need even bigger seasons moving forward.

It’s hard to keep beating the dead horse concerning Tennessee’s secondary, but the fact of the matter is that Tennessee has to get more pressure on the quarterback this season. As mentioned above, Young did that last year. With him returning and assuming he stays away from the injury bug, a full 13 games will do wonders for not only his stats at the end of the season, but Tennessee’s final record as well.

Josh Heupel will travel one of two roads in 2022. He can improve, win 8/9 or so games and continue doing what he told Vol Nation he would do – lead Tennessee back to national relevance

Or he could revert to Jeremy Pruitt style, blow it against Ball State in week 1 and wither away as a ‘what could have been’ for the Tennessee faithful.

It’s a bit much to say a lot of that success lay on Young’s shoulders, but in a way it does. Tennessee’s front, arguably where the most talent resides on that side of the ball, has to alleviate pressure from a weakened secondary on a defense that couldn’t really hold its weight last year. Young’s sack numbers not only have the ability to be higher this season, they need to be. Tennessee needs an All-SEC caliber year from Young, Baron, Omari Thomas and the rest of the defensive line.

Nobody said it was going to be easy.

Hear it from…

Tennessee defensive line coach Rodney Garner has seen Young grow more and more since transferring into D1.

“I have seen development out of BY from where he has come since last year this time,” Garner said at spring camp. “The growth that he’s made, it’s been tremendous, but he still has a long way to go because he was so far off. Just watching him grow as a player and gaining confidence. I don’t think he would ever be a verbal leader, but he can affect the room just by his play and just continuing to master his craft. So, that’s the way that he’s got to help us.”

The last line is what should stick out to Tennessee fans. Garner has coached a lot of NFL talent over the years, that’s not a statement that should be taken lightly. It also reinforces the point that Young has the ability to be the focal point on any defense desperately chasing the objective of simply not getting in the way.

Because ultimately, that’s all Tennessee’s defense needs to be. Nobody is asking for a Georgia level of dominance (though it would obviously be nice). The Vols’ identity resides in its fast-paced offense. Last season, the defense wasn’t enough to keep every game from turning into a shootout.

But Young is a guy that could carry a team. That’s something that is irreplaceable.

He’s holding himself to it, too

“Taking what I did last year, just trying to get way better,” Young said when asked how he would improve this offseason in spring camp. “Getting off the ball faster. Sharpening my craft. Everything I did last year, I just want to make that 10 times better.”