Home Sweet Home: Mariyon Dye

The 4-star edge rusher from Indiana committed on June 28

Some planned improvements here include releasing profiles of recruits after they commit to UT. This will likely be limited to football recruiting, although basketball is a possibility at some point. It probably won’t include baseball because baseball rosters are whack and prone to huge amounts of turnover.

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There was a flurry of commitments for Tennessee in June, so let’s work back from the end of the month with the latest commit, edge rusher Mariyon Dye:

Dye is a highly rated prospect with a great offer list. Beating Michigan and Ohio State for a Midwestern kid is a feat, and I’m counting this as a rare post-season win against Purdue for the Vols. Of the national recruiting services, On3 has the highest opinion of Dye, ranking him as the number 40 overall player and 5th-best edge rusher in the class.

Hudl Film

It may be worth noting that On3, Rivals, and 247 have Dye at 260-270 pounds, while ESPN and Hudl list him at 235-240. Those 20-30 lbs. can make a big difference in how a player plays on the DL and what role he might be expected to fill. I’m assuming the On3/Rivals/247 weights are from camps and maybe more recent? Just something to note.

Looking at Dye’s film, you immediately see he has great instincts and a nose for the ball. Check out this tipped pass leading to a INT, and Dye’s devastating block on the return:

Of course, that’s an atypical play for a defensive end, but you can see here more of what you’d expect from an edge player:

The full film is full of plays like that, showcasing Dye’s ability to sniff out the ball and get to the carrier quickly. He tackles well, especially considering how he could just rely on his size and strength to knock people over. Instead, he brings his arms to wrap up and drive the ball carrier to the ground.

The only real concern I find with Dye’s film is that he doesn’t play with great technique, especially at the snap. He plays “vertically” a lot rather than getting low and using leverage. This is a common flaw in highly recruited linemen since most OLs and DLs being recruited by power schools are simply bigger and stronger than most kids they’re playing against and can get away with ignoring the old adage of “low man wins.” It’s not a huge problem because the technique will come through coaching and/or making the mistake of standing up at the line against a SEC left tackle.

Maybe Kinda Like

This will likely be the most controversial piece of these profiles every time I post them. This is simply a comparison based on size, position, and rating as a recruit from a database of recruits since 2000. It is not a prediction. To be very clear, I am not saying that Mariyon Dye will be the next Derek Barnett. It would a complete disservice to the kid and to us fans to put that kind of expectation on him. However, it is interesting that Dye has similar size and rating to Barnett—Dye is actually a little taller and has a slightly higher rating than Barnett did as a recruit. Dye also shares similarities with Jason Carr, who played a year at UT before ending up at West Georgia; JT Mapu; and Greg Emerson. Mapu and Emerson were solid contributors for the Vols, with Emerson eventually transferring to Memphis and Mapu getting a tryout with the Washington Redskins. And if you’re wondering why Jason Witten is on the list, it’s because he was recruited out of high school as a defensive, an easy fact to forget considering he became an all-time great at tight end and a NFL Hall-of-Famer.