It’s hard not to root for Tennessee tailback DeSean Bishop. Based on his recruiting ranking, the Knoxville native shouldn’t come close to stacking up to his Volunteer counterparts. Yet that hasn’t stopped him.
The former Karns (Knoxville, Tenn.) High School standout is second among Vol running backs in carries with 15, second in rushing yards with 105 and his 6.8 yards per carry is second best among all those highly-touted Vols that fans love to clamour about. Not bad for a former three-star prospect that some wondered aloud if he was actually a walk-on when he signed with Tennessee over much smaller schools like Appalachian State, Coastal Carolina, Austin Peay and Charlotte.
The former two-time Tennessee Titans 5A Mr. Football winner is listed at 5-foot-10 and 200 pounds. That may be the case if the redshirt sophomore is soaking wet and carry a gym bag. Nevertheless, his size hasn’t kept him from finding the field in the fall and not just being an offseason sensation with more appeal than a truckload of bananas.
“I think I’ve done solid, a solid job of just getting back to my flow,” said Bishop, who redshirted last season. “… think I did a good job of attacking that. Things I’m trying to improve on is just my overall play, pad-level and stuff like that.
“Just trying to get a good feel for the game. I feel like I’ve done a solid job of taking everything, making my reps count that I’m getting.”
Now, we’ll see what happens when the Vols face tougher foes. That won’t happen this week when Tennessee hosts Kent State, which is one of the worst teams in the nation. The Vols are heavy favorites so that could mean one of two things. Tennessee could play Bishop more to keep starter Dylan Sampson fresh or the Vols’ coaches might want to give sophomore Cameron Seldon and freshman Peyton Lewis more looks to see how much they have improved. Of course, the starter is Dylan Sampson, who has been dynamic this season.
“Dylan’s a dog, man,” Bishop said. “He takes the week to prepare, and I think that’s how he’s able to perform at such a high level. Kind of helps a guy like me, seeing what he does, and kind of learning from him…He’s definitely improved a lot since last year, especially taking that two-role last year and really making the best of his one-role this year.”
That “two-role” was behind former Vols Jaylen Wright and Jabari Small, who decided to move on after last season. That left Sampson and a bunch of inexperienced tailbacks to replace them. Bishop is the undersized overachiever. Seldon and Lewis are talented, but still not comfortable in the Vols’ offense. Both have issues. No one will play unless they have perfected pass protection with a pretty valuable quarterback in the backfield that you may have heard of.
Lewis and Seldon were hurt in the offseason, but have been completely cleared. Seldon seemed uncomfortable at times running the ball last season. Lewis appears to be the all-around package that has size, speed and natural running ability to make opposing defenses wary. With a bit of seasoning, there’s a thought in amongst Tennessee’s coaches that Lewis could be a star.
“I think we have one of the best backfields in the country,” Bishop said. “You’ve got a lot of guys that put all the work in, from me, Dylan, Cam…I really think there’s no falloff. You can put us in the backend and you’re not going to see much of a difference.”
Bishop has a point, sort of. Sampson has averaged eight-yards per carry this season so there is somewhat of a drop-off to any other tailback. However, it’s certainly not as far as recruiting analysts would have thought. Those analysts and college scouts that got it wrong make it hard not to cheer for Bishop.
