Jalin Hyatt credits a Vols legend as the reason he ended up playing college football at Tennessee

Former Tennessee Vols wide receiver Jalin Hyatt nearly played college football at a different power-conference school.

Fortunately for the Vols, a Tennessee legend -- who happened to be serving as a position coach on Rocky Top at the time -- helped convince Hyatt to spend his college career in Knoxville.

Hyatt detailed during a recent interview with Saturday Down South how Vols legend Tee Martin, who served as UT's wide receivers coach in 2019 and 2020, helped flip him from Virginia Tech to Tennessee.

"Before I committed to Tennessee, I was actually committed to Virginia Tech," said Hyatt. "During that process, at that time, it was Jeremy Pruitt as our head coach. Tee Martin was our wide receivers coach at that time before he took the job with the Ravens. When I committed (to Virginia Tech), Coach Tee Martin, he always called me -- even after I committed to Virginia Tech. He called me, he's like, 'Man, we need you here'.

"And over time, he just sold me with how the University of Tennessee, with the fans, the game day experience, the SEC vibes of playing college football -- everybody wants to be in the SEC. And not only that, I felt like just with Tennessee at that time, once they wanted to be great, I knew what Tennessee can bring out. And my junior year (the 2022 season) when we played, it showed. Just with the fans, I remember going to -- we had a game against LSU over there in Baton Rouge, and it was just all orange. Things like that is the reason why you want to go to the University of Tennessee."

Tee Martin wasn't on staff to see Hyatt's incredible breakout season in 2022. The Vols legend, however, is largely to thank for Hyatt even being in a position to have a historic season at Tennessee.