Much has been said about Carlson's questionable approach to recruiting, NIL/scholarship, and roster management this last year, but something clearly isn't working. In just the last few months MANY Tennessee athletes have entered the portal to leave. Here are a few of them.
- Yaseen Abdalla GR (3rd at regional, 4th at SECs, 13:39 5000) -> Undecided
- Dawson Welch FR (3:48 1500) -> Arkansas
- Trevor Coggin FR (4:14/9:05 HS) -> Furman
- Connor Henson FR (transferred after XC, ran 3:45 after) -> Ole Miss
- Jacob Nenow FR (36th at regional, 32nd at SECs) -> Princeton
- Yordanos Zelinski SO (3:46 1500, 14:16 5000) -> Mizzou
And on the women's side you have Emily Covert making a very quick move to Notre Dame
Know of any others? Add to this that Carlson has had a plethora of assistants (including his right hand man Nic Jacobsen) depart the program in the last year (reportedly out of disgust with Carlson's antics), and he's brought on recently graduated Dalton Hengst as an assistant (lol)
So what's the deal? Its well known he's promising large amounts of non-guaranteed NIL money in the place of scholarships (not necessarily his fault), bringing on huge recruiting classes, and making ruthless cuts - and he's clearly alienated a large portion of the team with this approach. How does he course correct? Will the AD get wise and go a different direction?
Discus.