What began as a warm start to 2015 for Tennessee with last night’s 45-28 win over Iowa in Jacksonville at the TaxSlayer Bowl just made the jump to white hot.

Nashville native, consensus top-200 player and unanimous 4-star defensive end Kyle Phillips of Hillsboro High School announced live at the Army All-American Game in San Antonio this afternoon that he has committed to the University of Tennessee. Phillips will join Andrew Butcher, Marques Ford and Darrell Taylor as Tennessee’s committed defensive ends in the 2015 class.

Kyle Phillips

Defensive end

6’4, 255 pounds

Nashville, Tenn. (Hillsboro)

Top Offers

Alabama, Florida, LSU, Ole Miss, Auburn, Georgia, Ohio State, FSU

Status

Tennessee commit



Phillips – a 6’4, 260-pound freak at his DE spot – held offers from nearly every major college football program in the country, but recently narrowed his list of schools to include LSU, Ole Miss and Tennessee before Selecting the Vols today. LSU looked to have the inside-track on Phillips when his longtime friend, Ugo Amadi, committed to Les Miles and that Tigers earlier in the week. But the Jump of longtime Tiger defensive coordinator John Chavis to Texas A&M appears to have worked in Tennessee’s favor with Phillips in this situation.

Phillips is an early enrollee, and will be enrolling at Tennessee in January before participating in spring practice with the rest of Tennessee’s football team. Phillips will now join DE Andrew Butcher, QB Quinten Dormady, QB/Ath Jauan Jennings, OL Jack Jones, RB Alvin Kamara, LB Darrin Kirkland Jr., S Stephen Griffin, OL Chance Hall and DT Shy Tuttle as Tennessee’s 2015 early enrollees.

Here’s a look at Phillips’ most recent highlight video:

