For healthy college football programs, the NFL Draft is a celebration of success. In seven rounds stretched across four days, players become walking ad campaigns for their school as they begin their professional careers on national television. For Tennessee, that’s what made the last two years so hard. The Vols, a program that leads the SEC with 337 all-time draft picks, haven’t had a player hear his name called since 2014, when Ja’Wuan James went in the first round and Zach Fulton and Daniel McCullers were both grabbed in the sixth round. Painful, hard-to-watch shutouts followed in 2015 and 2016. “Those were tough years to go through,” Bob Welton, Tennessee’s director of player personnel, told GoVols247 on Wednesday. “It wasn’t a lot of fun being in the SEC and at Tennessee and draft day comes along and you end up going golfing or something, because you have nothing to watch for. “Those aren’t fun.” (Want the latest scoop on Tennessee football and basketball? Make sure you’re in the loop — take five seconds to sign up for our FREE Vols newsletter now!)…

Tennessee finally declared drought-free.
For the first time in well over a year, Tennessee is officially free of drought conditions.
In its latest update, issued Thursday, the U.S. Drought Monitor declared that no part of Tennessee is in a drought.
That was not a surprise, considering the Drought Monitor classified only 0.52 percent of the state — the extreme southeastern corner, east of Chattanooga — as being in a moderate drought, or a level one drought, one week earlier.
During the same week in May 2016, nearly a quarter of the state was in a moderate drought.
The drought has long been over along the northern Cumberland Plateau, but southern portions of the state continued to be classified as being in a drought by the U.S. Drought Monitor, which is a collaborative effort of several federal agencies, including the National Weather Service and the Department of Agriculture.
At its worst, part of East Tennessee was in a chart-topping exceptional drought, while the northern plateau was in an extreme drought.
At the start of the calendar year, nearly half the state was in at least a moderate drought, with 20 percent in a severe drought.
The drought conditions contributed to an unusually busy wildfire season during the months of October and November, before an uptick in the amount of rain seen across the state began to improve conditions in December.

Recent rainfall brings Chattanooga out of a drought.
It was a wet commute for drivers in the Scenic City after nearly an inch of rain fell within 24 hours.
Water swallowed a section of Dayton Boulevard as rain fell during the Monday morning commute.
It was a similar scene on Rossville Boulevard as motorists took their chances and drove through standing water.
We didn’t see any major flooding in our area, but meteorologists said we have seen enough rainfall to bring conditions out of a drought.
"We’ve actually had some pretty decent rainfall, as a matter of a fact, we are 4-4.5 inches above the rainfall for the year," Channel 3 Meteorologist David Karnes said.
10.5 inches of rain fell in April alone, at times, creating localized flooding.
"Another cause is too much rain falls and all the creeks and rivers and streams can’t clear it out fast enough and they start to rise and overflow their banks," he added.
But many hope this trend of seeing more rain continues as we head into the summer and helps keep wildfires like we saw last year from happening again.
Records show Chattanooga has gotten about 23 inches of rain so far this year.

Knoxville water pollution remains a concern for professionals, environmental groups.
The sunlight bounces off the flowing water of the Tennessee River and connecting streams.
It might be a picturesque scene for residents, but what lays in the water is a concern for professionals and environmental groups in the Knoxville area.
“The Tennessee River has routinely listed as one of the top 20 most populated rivers in the U.S.,” according to Dr. Mike McKinney, a professor of Environmental Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Then, increasingly agricultural, we have a lot of runoff from tomato farms and crops,” McKinney said.
“We have funded a $38,000 research lab on second creek to monitor the water quality and water pollution…that will go over for three to four year period,” according to Preston Jacobsen, a sustainability manager at UTK’s Office of Sustainability.
Creeks are a lot worse than the rivers.
Water pollution has also affected Knoxville’s drinking water.
Knoxville’s drinking water comes from the Tennessee River and although the water is filtrated, some chemicals are still present in the water, according to McKinney.
Knoxville residents can help reduce Knoxville’s water pollution by getting involved in cleanup efforts and promoting environmental awareness, according to Jacobsen.