Tennessee football trending for 5-star DE Chandavian Bradley

Tennessee football picked up a couple of huge crystal balls for five-star defensive end Chandavian Bradley on Saturday afternoon.

Josh Heupel is facing a tall task as Tennessee football’s head coach: make the Vols relevant again.

It’s not an easy task for anyone, especially since Tennessee has fallen short of expectations plenty of times over the past 15 years under Derek Dooley, Butch Jones, and Jeremy Pruitt.

In fact, the Volunteers haven’t won 10 games since the 2007 season when Phillip Fulmer was still in charge. Fulmer was no stranger to 10-plus win seasons and Tennessee thrived with him running the show, but the program has touched nine wins just two times since and has missed a bowl game seven times.

After three disappointing years of Pruitt in which the Vols went 18-19, Heupel has already posted a winning record in his first season and he led Tennessee to a bowl game.

Recruiting, however, was never an issue under Pruitt. He landed three top 25 recruiting classes and two were actually ranked in the top 15 — the 2020 class was ranked No. 10. However, he could never translate that solid recruiting into wins.

Heupel is hoping for a different outcome with similar recruiting success.

If all goes as planned, his 2023 class could end up being the best Tennessee has had in quite some time. He has already landed a five-star quarterback in the form of Nicholaus Iamaleava along with two more guys ranked in the top 100 and three in the top 150. The Vols have the No. 8 class in the nation for 2023 but that could soon see a jump if a recent trend ends in a commitment.

On Saturday, the Vols picked up two 247Sports crystal ball predictions to land five-star defensive end Chandavian Bradley from Missouri. He’s ranked the No. 29 prospect and fourth-best defensive end in the class. He unofficially visited Knoxville on May 28 which contributed to these predictions, but Tennessee has become the favorite to land him over USC and a handful of others.

Tennessee is on the verge of landing its second five-star in the class and the fourth player ranked in the top 100. Heupel is well on his way to getting Tennessee back in the spotlight.