“I think the biggest advantage that they have in that aspect is that it’s SEC football,” he said of the Vols. “I mean, all the Power Five conferences have their name and they’re great, and they bring in media. They bring in talent. But, I mean, at this point it’s pretty much objective that the SEC just has the most football talent. That’s just kind of how it is and kind of how it always will be, just because it’s in the South, and football is really a religion in the South.
“Every week, you’re going to be competing against potentially a first-round draft pick. You have to get better. You have to be good if you want to play in the SEC. The competitive part of you just wants to say, like, ‘Let me go against the best of the best.’
“Not to say other conferences don’t have first-round draft picks, but just the rate in the SEC is so high. It just brings you up, and then you’ll really know if you can play football if you play good in the SEC.”
Ayomanor said the fast-paced offense Tennessee has installed this year under Heupel is among the other reasons he’s high on the Vols.
“What I’ve gained from just watching film on my own and with the coaches is, one of the main things is tempo,” Ayomanor said. “They’re constantly a high-tempo team. I mean, on, like, third-and-5, third-and-6, third-and-7 they’re going to slow it down because those are crucial downs. But mostly, the majority of the time, they’re an uptempo team and they don’t really give time for the defense to recuperate and give time for the defense to get settled in.
“And they throw the ball a ton, and it seems like Coach Heupel doesn’t want to waste time when he wants to score. He wants to air the ball out, get down the field and score.
“If you want to go to the NFL, you need to have statistics. And, if you just look at the statistics of Coach Heupel’s offense, you can just see that even their number-three receiver has crazy stats. And not only that, (but) you just get a lot of targets and a lot of experience catching the ball in games. I think it’s a great offense to be in if you’re a receiver.”