There’s no denying it. Legacy players are scary.
Now let me be clear, I’m certainly not turning down three-star linebacker prospect J.P. Peace, who recently committed to Tennessee over a host of other schools. He is well worth the scholarship offer no matter that his father, Robert Peace, was a Tennessee standout linebacker for the Vols or that his grandfather, Phillip Fulmer, was a player and championship coach for Tennessee.
Florida State and Kentucky had already come calling for the 6-foot-3, 215-pounder who is from West High School in Knoxville. He is well worth the scholarship offer, and his eventual signing should be celebrated.
I would just warn two of the parties involved, the Peace family and Tennessee fans, not to get their hopes up too high. That’s certainly not an indictment of Peace or UT’s coaches; it’s just a cautionary tale based on what I’ve seen while covering Tennessee athletics.
While I don’t believe this is the case with Peace, prospects with a strong lineage often get an extra boost in recruiting rankings thanks to their back stories. After all, it’s more interesting to write about a prospect that is following in his father’s footsteps. However, no one will want to read about that prospect if he just has one or two stars next to his name.
Then, there’s a school’s willingness to overextend their hospitality to a prospect just because he dad, uncle, mom or whomever went to the school. UT fans have seen that up close.
Former Tennessee coach Butch Jones was guilty of that. Kahlil McKenzie was the son of former Tennessee star Reggie McKenzie. That made the younger McKenzie a bit higher rated, as noted above, which raised expectations on him. He never achieved those expectations in his recruitment, which very likely made it impossible for Jones and his staff to move McKenzie to offensive guard, where he would have been a much better fit.
There’s a tendency to make prospects into stars when losing them would be an incredibly bad look for Jones. That would have certainly been the case had McKenzie gone elsewhere. There’s no question that promises were made in recruiting.
Whatever promises were made weren’t broken as McKenzie played out of position throughout his time at Tennessee. Not moving McKenzie hurt both parties. The NFL immediately moved him to guard. Jones didn’t have that leverage.
Tennessee caught some pretty bad publicity when Tee Martin’s son, receiver Amari Rodgers, picked Clemson over the Vols despite growing up in Knoxville. Many thought that was the one of the final straws in Jones’ tenure.
As for McKenzie, he was a solid player at Tennessee, but far from a star. However, landing him in recruiting gave Jones some more credibility to keep his job when he was on shaky ground. Following in his father’s footsteps unfairly raised the expectations. It’s also reasonable to ask if Jones put too many resources into landing a legacy player that would please a suffering fan base. However, there is one former Vol that lived up to all the expectations.
Former Tennessee defensive back Eric Berry superseded his father, former Volunteer running back James Berry. The elder Berry was good. The younger Berry was an All-American. However, together the two cast a shadow their family still had to fight out of.
Elliot and Evan Berry were solid players at Tennessee. Evan was a receiver and All-American return specialist. Elliot was a solid linebacker. However, the expectations were so high that fans never truly appreciated them. That’s just one of the many risks with legacy players.
