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Tennessee is about to lose a player who's been committed for over six months, but there's a reason Vols fans shouldn't be upset about it

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The Tennessee Volunteers are on the verge of losing a player who’s been committed for over six months, but there’s a good reason why UT football fans shouldn’t be upset about it.

The Tennessee Vols are about to lose a recruit who’s been committed to the program for nearly seven months.

But it’s a decommitment that plugged-in Vols fans knew was coming.

On3’s Steve Wiltfong and Chad Simmons predicted on Thursday that four-star defensive lineman Kadin Fife will flip from Tennessee to Georgia.

“After talking to sources with knowledge of the recruitment, Chad Simmons and I are predicting Fife to ultimately land in Athens,” wrote Wiltfong.

Fife, who has been committed to Tennessee since last November, took an official visit to Georgia last weekend, and he told On3 after that visit that he likes that the Bulldogs play a lot of freshmen.

"Georgia plays freshmen early everywhere and it shows with the stats, and they develop defensive linemen at a very high level, so I feel like I can get on the field very early if I put in work… I definitely have a big decision to make within the next couple of weeks," said Fife.

Why Vols fans shouldn’t be mad that Tennessee is likely losing Kadin Fife

Fife may end up being a really good player. If you’ve followed recruiting for any amount of time, you know no one has a crystal ball.

Tennessee, though, made Fife’s looming decision a bit easier this month when they took a commitment from junior college defensive lineman Christian Mays, a raw player with a ton of upside.

“He’s a quick twitch guy who’s got some length to him,” said VolQuest’s Brent Hubbs earlier this month on WNML’s SportsTalk when asked about Mays. “He’s a bit raw, and he hasn’t played a ton of football. He’s got a good story in terms of just kind of fighting his way through and developing and becoming a player through the junior college ranks. And this is a classic (Vols DL coach) Rodney Garner fit is what it feels like.”

Tennessee knew if they took a commitment from Mays that it would likely push Fife toward Georgia. So this essentially tells us that Tennessee likes their evaluation of Mays better than their evaluation of Fife.

Time will be the ultimate judge of those evaluations, but that’s the reason for this expected flip. And in this era of college football, you simply can’t stockpile a bunch of commitments at one position in a single recruiting class.

This article was originally published on A to Z Sports. Read the full story here: Tennessee is about to lose a player who's been committed for over six months, but there's a reason Vols fans shouldn't be upset about it

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