See what Tennessee director of scouting Brandon Lawson told the Knoxville Quarterback Club on Monday afternoon
Ryan Callahan
WithTennesseepreparing for its pivotal home game Saturday night against rival Florida, the Vols senta member oftheir scouting department to speak to the Knoxville Quarterback Club this week. Brandon Lawson, Tennessee's director of scouting,addressed the group Monday afternoon at Calhoun's on the River.
Lawson, a Tennessee graduate and Knoxville native,joined Vols coach Josh Heupel in making the move from UCF to his alma mater in2021. Lawson previously served as the Knights' director of player personnel under Heupel during his three seasons at UCF,and he has playeda significant role in Tennessee's scouting and recruiting efforts throughout Heupel's nearly four years in Knoxville.
During his first stint at Tennessee, Lawson spent four years as the Vols' football personnel administratorin 2010-14.At the time,he was charged with creating prospect databases, managing assistant coaches' recruiting operations and planning and executing visit events on campus under former coaches Derek Dooley and Butch Jones.
After leaving Tennessee, Lawsonserved as thedirector of player personnel at Middle Tennesseein 2014-15. He then was the director of recruiting at Eastern Kentucky in 2016-17 before joining Heupel at UCF.
Here's whatLawson told the Knoxville Quarterback Club on Monday.
JOIN NOW: GET 30% OFF AN ANNUAL VIP MEMBERSHIP TO GOVOLS247
Opening comments
"Appreciate you guys having me back out here again. I got a chance to do this last year. Really look forward to it. Like Jeff (Hagood) talked about, I'm originally from South Knoxville, went to high school at South-Doyle. Spent six years in the Marine Corps right after high school and then came back to college here at the University of Tennessee — Haslam College of Business grad —and then I kind of started my football career from there.
"I actually had a chance to spend three years with Heup down at UCF, and then was fortunate enough to come back up here to Tennessee when he got the job up here, so really excited about that.
"Excited to be back home and do this here for kind of the hometown team for me. It means a lot to me that we're successful in what we're able to accomplish.
"A lot bit about my role: I'm the director of scouting, so what that means is all the evaluation stuff, understanding what we need on the roster, where the roster is, where the roster's going over time, et cetera. Understanding from the high school standpoint exactly what we're looking for, how we're going about that, what we want to do there systematically, transfer portal, et cetera.That's kind of my role, kind of in a nutshell a little bit, overlapping that a little bit with the recruitment of the players —the actual recruitment of the players —and walking through that one step at a time."
On what happens during an official visit to Tennessee
"Obviously, there's a lot of logistics that go into all of the official visits. There are also unofficial visits, but specifically about an official visit, we bring the family in. We put them up in a hotel, take them to dinners. They have a dinner over in Neyland Stadium. We spend a lot of our time doing football stuff, meeting with them —whatever their position group is, whatever their position meeting room is —meeting with them, spending time with them, figuring out the football piece of it with them, and then walking through what Tennessee has to offer for them, like why it's important to come to the University of Tennessee and why it's special here and why they should be here."
On whether Tennessee's staff often knows about potential transfers before they officially enter the NCAA transfer portal
"For the vast majority of it, I'm sure everything thinks that everybody knows who's coming out and all those sorts of things. The vast majority of it, you really don't, for the most part. Obviously, like you said, we can't contact those guys until they're actually in the portal. But, obviously, through the entire football world, there's always information being passed back and forth —some true, some not true. But the reality is you really don't know until you actually know for sure."
On whether there are specific traits Tennessee's staff looks for at each position
"Yeah, absolutely. We have a little bit of a systematic approach to what we do from an evaluation standpoint, from a scouting standpoint, walking each position group down as far as physical traits, athletic traits and then who the actual human being is —their competitive nature and their competitive makeup, all those sorts of things. We could spend hours and hours talking through every single trait that we look at, but we kind of systematically go through that with each position group."
On how NIL impacts the recruiting process
"Obviously, a lot. We're really excited for the players. I think that they have a lot of opportunities, a lot of NIL opportunities. We're going to continue to be on the forefront of the NIL world. It's just part of what college football is now, right? But, obviously, it does impact how we go about everything that goes on. And it's just a reality of the game at this point. We have to continue to be smart, continue to understand what we're doing and where we're going with it, and we have a lot of great partners and a lot of great support and a great fan base here at Tennessee."
On how many people he oversees and how many people are involved with each recruit
"There's a handful that work under me, and we also have a ton of students that come in. We actually have a really robust training part of what we do. Those students help us a ton. Kind of throughout the week, they have responsibilities and roles. But they're individuals that are interested in the scouting world, and the NFL and college scouting and all those sorts of things. We get a chance to do that. I have a handful of people that work underneath me, kind of splitting up different sides of the ball.
"Different guys have different position groups and those sorts of things, so there's a really good chance you probably end up with eight people with reports, give or take, on any one prospect. And that's multiple iterations of it, right? They're going to look different as sophomores than they do as juniors. They're going to look different as juniors than they do as seniors, so we kind of go about it that way. We kind of have a systematic approach to it."
On how many people Tennessee has combing through the transfer portal and whether it's important to be the first school to contact a player in the portal
"We've got multiple people that comb the portal because it's just absolute chaos, obviously, and there's a lot that goes into it. I think for us, when you ask, how important is it to be the first person to contact that individual? Yes, that is really important. Most importantly, we have to be right about who we're spending time on. Does that make sense? So we try to really vet the entire situation before we start allocating time and resources to try and go make that happen. Now, the portal forces you to go faster, really, than you want to go a lot of times.
"I do think it's important to be out there first and make sure that you're in contact with the players, just like we try to do in high school within the bounds and the rules of the NCAA. But, most importantly, we want to make sure that we're right."
On whether Tennessee's staff sometimes might be familiar with a player in the transfer portal from evaluating or recruiting him coming out of high school
"Sure. Sometimes you do. A lot of times you don't. Going back to what we talked about before,the traits — the physical traits, the athletic traits, competitive makeup —you have to figure all that out in a pretty sped-up situation."
On players on Tennessee's current roster who weren't highly rated coming out of high school but have proven to be good evaluations by the Vols
"It is a good question. Obviously, we're proud of a lot of the guys that are on the team. One guy that just immediately comes to mind when you ask that question is DeSean Bishop. He has come in and worked his tail off. He had the injury last year and has really excited a bunch of people in our building with what he's putting on the field. But it's a direct outgrowth of his commitment to the football program and his investment."
On how many visitors Tennessee will be hosting for Saturday's game against Florida
"It's a lot. I mean, it's got to be up over 100, give or take, so it'll be a huge recruiting weekend for us. Excited to be back home. We haven't been home, probably, in 30 days, give or take. Excited to be back here. It'll be a huge recruiting weekend for us. Look forward to that. Our stadium will be bumping, and we'll be ready to go rock and roll."
On how many of Tennessee's visitors this weekend will be official visitors
"I actually don't think we have any official visits this weekend, unless that's changed in the past 48 hours, give or take. But most of those will be unofficials."
