I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a recruiting guru, nor do I play one in this newspaper column.

But I know there are a lot of college football diehards out there who know only three seasons – football, spring football and recruiting.

I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about whether some strong safety prospect from Dalton, Ga., is going to pick Mississippi State over Clemson, but I do follow it enough to know that the University of Tennessee’s incoming class for 2014 is something worth acknowledging.

It’s no secret the Volunteers haven’t done a whole lot of winning over the past few years.

But the fact that UT has, according to recruiting gurus, a top 10 class this season is an encouraging sign that the Big Orange’s fortunes might be about to turn around.

The key to UT’s recruiting success this year was its ability to keep the state’s top prospects in-house.

One of the problems in recent years – dating back even to the final years of the Phil Fulmer regime and continuing on up through Derek Dooley’s ill-fated run – was Tennessee’s inability to lasso the state’s top prospects.

Jones

NFL stars like Donte Hightower, Patrick Willis, Randall Cobb and Michael Oher all were Tennessee high school football standouts, and all went outside the state, either due to not being recruited by UT or simply a desire to go get away from home.

Coach Butch Jones and his staff took a big step toward remedying that, with the Nashville and Middle Tennessee area playing a big part in the recruiting success.

“You have to give a lot of credit to Tommy Thigpen, the linebackers coach,” says UT recruiting analyst Ryan Callahan of 247Sports.

Thigpen

“UT shifted some coaches around, and Thigpen was in charge of recruiting the Nashville area.

“He handled the Nashville area extremely well and did a great job with some of those guys. He was a big reason they were able to land Josh Malone (Station Camp) and played a role in Jalen Hurd’s (Beech) commitment. He gets major credit for landing all those guys.”

The Vols wound up with nine of the state’s top 11 recruits.

“It was just one of those years where the stars aligned with this one particular class,” Callahan adds.

The Vols had to recruit nationally when they were at their best, landing many prospects from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Ohio. But there were always some homegrown players in the mix.

Tennessee natives like Al Wilson, Travis Stephens and Chad Clifton, to name a few, were part of UT’s big success in the late ’90s.

And while the Vols will always have to have a regional and national slant in their recruiting, Callahan calls this year’s class a prime example of the state’s gains in the number of Division I prospects available.

There is an abundance of local talent, not only from private schools like Brentwood Academy, MBA and Ensworth, but also in the surrounding counties like Rutherford, Sumner and Williamson.

“Tennessee is always gonna have to recruit nationally and regionally,” Callahan explains.

“But it has gotten to point where Tennessee can rely on signing seven to 10 players in state every year, and that used to not be the case.

“There were a few classes just a few years ago where Tennessee only pursued four or five players in-state. Now, you can get that many from the Nashville area alone.

“There are usually a couple of Division I prospects in Rutherford County every year, plus schools like Independence, Station Camp and Beech had top prospects.

“Tennessee should be able to rely on in-state prospects now for about a third to half of their class almost every year,” he adds.

“It’s definitely different than before, and the Nashville area is leading the way. Nashville is booming and has taken a step forward as the main talent-producing hub of the state.

“It used to be Memphis, but the Nashville area is producing more talent now, and that’s good for Tennessee because that talent is now closer to Knoxville.”

Terry McCormick covers the Titans for TitanInsider.com and is a blogger for National Football Post.