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. 12 is senior offensive lineman Darnell Wright.
Past Performance
Tennessee enters 2022 with two of the top 10 players in the 2019 class on the roster – USC transfer wide receiver Bru McCoy and senior offensive lineman Darnell Wright.
Wright was the No. 10 overall player in the 2019 class and the No. 1 player in the state of West Virginia out of Huntington High School. He led Huntington to a 12-1 record and was projected as an instant started upon arrival to campus.
And, as expected, he was. Wright has started in 29 of his 34 games at Tennessee at three different positions on the offensive line. He started at right guard in his first game at Chattanooga in 2019, shifted to right tackle and finally left tackle his junior year.
Wright saw a team-high snap count in 2021 at left tackle with 922 counts to add to his total of 1,851 across his three season career.
Perhaps most importantly, Wright has been able to avoid the injury bug during his time on Rocky Top.
Opportunities
Wright will likely be back at right tackle to start the 2022 season.
The 6-foot-6, 335 pound lineman could take over for departing NFL draftee Cade Mays in the all important primary run block position on the line.
Wright offers the highest amount of flexibility on the line this season. Cooper Mays will play the center position with Jerome Carvin and Javontez Spraggins fulfilling the guard duties. Veteran lineman Jerimiah Crawford will likely take over Wright’s spot at left tackle solely based off spring practice reps.
Obviously, nobody knows where Wright will play until the first snap of the season against Ball State. Either tackle position will be in good hands, its just a matter of whether or not Heupel and offensive line coach Glen Elarbee consider run block or protecting Hendon Hooker’s weakside at left tackle is more important as the season progresses.
It is widely believed the left tackle spot is the most important on the offensive line, so it would make sense to plug your most talented lineman there. Regardless, Wright’s most comfortable position has always been right tackle where he played the majority of his first two seasons.
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Elarbee feels Wright’s experience puts the Vols in a good position to keep the offense running smoothly – at least in the same zip code as last year’s production.
Tennessee has a lot of inexperience in the trenches this season excluding Wright.
“And that’s not saying Darnell doesn’t need to take a step. Darnell just has a bunch of experience now. He’s confident,” Elarbee said. “He is the easiest one to move back to his kind of natural home and allow us to get those guys to compete at the left tackle spot. It may end up being that Darnell moves back and we end up over there.”
It’s not the worst problem to have,. Figuring out where to play one of the best players on the team still means you have a really good player who is flexible enough for it to be an issue in the first place.
Wright will allow Tennessee to do a lot of good things on offense this season. He has shown to be a proficient run blocker and allowed zero sacks against one of the most productive defenses of all time in the national champions, Georgia. There’s no reason to believe he won’t build on that his senior year.
