Used to be the case, but not any longer. Tennessee, and especially middle Tennessee, have grown tremendously and is now turning out a big number of Power 5 level prospects pretty much every year.
The issue for UT is that so many of those prospects haven't grown up UT fans. They have come in when UT is down and family have allegiances to other programs. They just aren't fans, which makes it essentially the same as recruiting out of state players.
Good indicator here:
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football-recruiting/2017/12/18/16780636/best-recruits-2019-state-rankings12th is good, better than it used to be, but Georgia still has 3x our number of recruits and Florida even more. Then again, we are much closer to bammer and Lousianna, so that's good. Still just one year though, but hope its a trend. If Tennessee is trending to bammer-level of recruits, that's great.
Would still like to see the long term trend and more distinction than "blue chips", and what is more telling is how many end up starting in P5 and also getting drafted, but at least things are headed the right way.
