Tennessee's massive recruiting weekend includes five-star OT, flip from Alabama

Josh Heupel and the Tennessee Volunteers made two seismic moves on the recruiting trail over the weekend.

Heading into a season in which a ton of hype is on the Volunteers thanks to former five-star quarterback recruit turned Tennessee starter Nico Iamaleava, the Vols just added another five-star to the pipeline.

On Saturday, one of the top overall recruits in the 2025 class, five-star offensive tackle David Sanders Jr., committed to Tennessee over Ohio State, Nebraska and Georgia.

”Tennessee, they just showed me love from the beginning,” Sanders explained via 247Sports . “I felt that love since the very beginning, and I just knew that was home. On my official visit was when I really felt it, and I just felt like that’s where I needed to be."

That's a huge win for Heupel and his staff. At 6-foot-6, 290 pounds, Sanders is ranked as the nation's top offensive tackle recruit and No. 2 overall player , according to the 247Sports Composite.

A day later, Tennessee pulled off a big steal. Jaedon Harmon, a four-star linebacker, had been committed to Alabama since April, but the Vols stuck with the recruiting process and were able to sway him away on Sunday.

New Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer had picked up right where Nick Saban had let up on the recruiting trail, so poaching Harmon from the Crimson Tide is no small deal for the Volunteers. According to the 247Sports Composite, he's the No. 18 linebacker in the country.

Huepel and the Vols now have the sixth-ranked class in the nation and the expectations on Rocky Top are sky high for both 2024 and the future.

According to Huepel, that winning vibe has compounded not just on the field, but on the recruiting trail as well.

"Us being able to recruit to the culture that we've built here. The success that we've had on the field. Who we are and how we live out every single day. All those things parlay itself into the success that we've had on the recruiting trail here, in particular here over the last month and a half," he told the media on Monday, per 247Sports .