It was good. It was fun, said Tootoo. They showed nothing but love down there, and just being able to sit down and talk with Coach Pruitt was great. Hes a good man. I just loved the whole atmosphere down there. The 6-foot-1, 227-pound Tootoo said he and his father spent Friday and Saturday morning at Tennessee before visiting Alabama on Sunday and Monday. He said it was fun getting down there to Tennessee and seeing all the coaches and players, led by Kevin Simon, a former Vols linebacker who now works in player development at Tennessee.
I was just going down there blind, he said. But everything is right there, so it felt good to know that. The people down there, everyone knows everybody, and it was just fun. Of course, its an SEC school, one of the top conferences out there, so I never really slept on them. But it cleared a lot of things up when we got down there, and how the players were, it just felt good. For sure, I plan on going back soon.
We were with Kevin Simon a lot, Tootoo said. Coach Niedermeyer, we were with him. And we spent a good amount of time with Coach Pruitt. They were one of the top dogs, so they were just explaining how theyre in that reloading process and how, in the years to come there, its going to be great, he said. We talked about some of their schemes and stuff like that, and where am I going to be if I were to attend there? They want me at inside linebacker, so its just perfect with what I want.
Theyre dogs, and Tennessee is just wonderful, Tootoo said. "I mean, you talk about everything in the program and then going from that to the (pregame) Vol Walk, its just amazing. Just the coaches around there and the environment, the players, that was probably the biggest thing I liked.
