Knoxville Native Devrin Young Commits to Tennessee

Props to Coach Derek Dooley for doing what Lame Kiffin wouldn't…

Keeping homegrown talent at home.

Bearden High School (TN) running back and former teammate of mine, Devrin Young, was called by the Big Hair himself Wednesday morning and awarded his second FBS scholarship offer: this one to be a Tennessee Volunteer.

“(Coach Dooley) said that size isn’t really an issue to him,” explained Young. “He would be excited if I would be a part of the program. It’s definitely relieving, you know, just to have a coach that will believe in you, especially when it’s in your own backyard. It’s just a huge a huge honor and a blessing to be offered by the University of Tennessee.”

Amen brother.

Thankfully, Young spared us the drama and committed later in the afternoon on Wednesday.

And all I could think was, “Finally, Bearden will send someone other than a Colquitt to UT.”

Young was offered on the heels of the most productive five games in Tennessee high school football this season: 1,009 yards, 15 TD, and 17.7 yards per carry.

I say again, five games. Those are entire season stats; REALLY GOOD entire season stats.

Let me throw out some stats: Devrin Young is 5’7" and 165 pounds soaking wet.

Quickly toss that stat out of the window.

Here’s a better one: Devrin Young ran a sub 4.5 40 in socks. I saw it.  I don’t care what size you are, because that is hard to beat.

Now before you go complaining about how the SEC will make mince meat of a kid that size, let me show you some SEC players of comparable size and speed, that did/have done pretty well for themselves in the best conference in college football.

Trindon Holliday (5’5’’ 161 lbs) LSU: Led the SEC, and ranked second nationally, in punt return average (18.1) his senior season at LSU. Finished second in Career all-purpose yards in school history and four total return TD.

Jeff Demps (5’8’’ 183 lbs) Florida: Rushed for 759 and seven TD last year, 367 and two TD so far this year. Also has 260 return yards on eight returns.

Dexter McCluster (5’8’’ 165 lbs) Ole Miss: His senior season he rushed for 1,169 yards and eight scores, and added 520 receiving yards and three receiving TD to the tally. He did all of this before getting drafted in the second round by KC.

Note the similar the size of Young and McCluster.

Those are just a few guys that come to mind, and truthfully, it’s not bad company.

I believe that UT will be able to utilize D-Young in a few different ways. The first way, and the way I think he’ll have an immediate impact, is the return game.

Next season, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Dev back by himself returning punts at some point, not unlike the fallen Nu’Keese Richardson.

We can just hope that he won’t be pulling BB guns on any Pilot gas stations any time soon. (I seriously doubt we will have to worry about that with Devrin.)

UT also loved Devrin out of the slot, two summers ago at Lame Kiffin’s first and only summer camp. I think anything Jim Chaney can do to get Young out in space can only be good for Tennessee’s offense, who could frankly use someone like that right now or on Saturday at LSU.

When it’s all said and done, I believe that Young will be a great addition for a Tennessee team that needs a spark on offense and special teams.

He’s a great kid, and I’m impressed that Dooley was able to look past his size and see the talent.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ll be looking for Devrin against Montana on September 3, 2011.

Brett Parisi is the head sports writer for Knoxvilleman.com and a contributor to Bleacher Report.