Vols make top-9 for three-time All-American Booker Pickett Jr.

Tennessee is one of nine teams for four-star prospect and three-time high school All-American Booker Pickett Jr.

Four-star EDGE prospect Booker Pickett Jr. announced his top nine schools Tuesday.

Tennessee, Georgia, Miami, Ohio State, Louisville, Penn State, South Carolina, USC and Florida State are Pickett’s top schools.

The 6-foot-4, 201-pound Pickett Jr. is from Wharton High School in Tampa, Florida.

Pickett is the No. 83 overall player in the class of 2024. He ranks as the No. 8 EDGE and No. 14 player in the state of Florida, according to the On3 Sports consensus.

As a junior in 2022, Pickett finished the season with 56 total tackles, 16 tackles for a loss and 30 sacks. He earned first-team MaxPreps High School Junior All-American honors. Pickett was also named the Hillsborough County co-Player of the Year.

Pickett was also selected as a sophomore All-American and earned freshman All-American honors. He totaled 127 tackles, 22 tackles for a loss and 30 sacks over his freshman and sophomore seasons.

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3-star offensive tackle flips from Auburn to Tennessee

The offensive tackle first committed to Auburn back in April.

Auburn lost one of its big commitments on Monday.

Three-star offensive tackle J’Marion Gooch announced that he has flipped from the Tigers to his home state Tennessee Volunteers.

The 6-foot-7.5, 358-pound Gooch originally committed to Auburn back in April.

2021 recruiting: Tennessee fans, stop bragging. Georgia fans, stop panicking.

Looking at the 2021 recruiting class, Tennessee Vols fans should stop bragging and Georgia football fans need to stop panicking.

Georgia football’s 2021 recruiting class is as follows (all rankings via 247Sports)

5-star QB Brock Vandagriff: No. 2 QB, No. 12 overall

4-star OT Micah Morris: No. 9 OT, No. 61 overall

4-star ATH David Daniel: No. 4 ATH, No. 78 overall

4-star RB Lovasea Carroll: No. 7 RB, No. 117 overall

4-star SDE Jonathan Jefferson: No. 13 SDE, No. 145 overall

4-star WDE Elijah Jeudy: No. 10 WDE, No. 170 overall

3-star DT Marlin Dean: No. 28 DT, No. 447 overall

Right now, this is the nation’s 20th ranked class. Given the fact that Georgia has only seven commitments, being ranked No. 20 is just fine. It’s clear that Georgia is going for quality over quantity in this class, with its commits carrying an average rating of 94.52, which is third in the country.

For comparison purposes, Tennessee has the No. 2 class in the nation. But Jeremy Pruitt is certainly going for quantity in this class. With 23 verbals, Tennessee commits carry an average rating of 89.84. That’s the lowest in the top-five.

(Fun fact: Florida, which has the nation’s No. 7 ranked class, has an average rating of 87.41, which is the lowest in the top-10 and the second-lowest in the top-15).

Georgia commits, fans and coaches all know that Kirby Smart has plenty of time to work his magic and climb the rankings by the time the early signing period rolls around in December. Maybe enlisting a little help from current players and commits on Twitter is what it takes to expedite that process, which is something we’ve seen a lot of this month. 5-star quarterback commit Brock Vandagriff has led the surge, tweeting at a number of top players in the 2021 class recruiting them to Georgia.

It’s too early to start doing two things: Bragging and panicking.

Look at Alabama. Nick Saban currently has the nation’s No. 46 raked class for the 2021 cycle. Nobody thinks for a second that the Tide will finish outside of the top-five when all is said and done. There’s just too much time and too many elite players remaining.

And let’s stick with Tennessee for a moment. The No. 2 class is nice, but in the end I’d prefer a class of around 22 players filled with elite commits than a class consisting of 30+ players where a majority of them are three-stars.

Tennessee’s 23 commitments broken down by star rating:

  • One 5-star
  • Nine 4-stars
  • Thirteen 3-stars

Georgia has plenty of highly ranked uncommitted recruits still on its board, not to mention the ones that Kirby will try to flip to UGA.

NEXT…Georgia’s top remaining targets in the 2021 class

Top Georgia TE picks Vols

2021 3-star TE Miles Campbell committed to Tennessee in an announcement on Twitter. Details here.

The Tennessee Volunteers receive another 3-star commitment, this time from Miles Campbell, one of the top tight ends in Georgia.

All rankings via 247Sports:

This brings the No. 2 ranked Vols 2021 recruiting class to 21 total commits with an average player rating of 0.8962, less than the 0.8992 average of the Vols 2020 No. 10 ranked recruiting class.

Campbell (6-3, 234) plays at South Paulding High School in Douglasville, Georgia, and is ranked as the No. 37 player in Georgia and the No. 20 TE overall. Campbell holds 32 offers, including one from Georgia, Florida, Miami and Auburn, but chose the Vols in an announcement on Twitter.

The Bulldogs currently sit at No. 18 in the 2021 recruiting class rankings with an average player rating of 0.954 and only seven commits. The low number of hard commits so far should tell you that Georgia coach Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs staff are only getting started — after all, Georgia is coming off of three No. 1 classes in a row.

4-star DT and Georgia recruiting target sets new commitment date

4-star DT Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins, a Georgia football recruiting target, set a new commitment date.

Last week, 2021 four-star defensive tackle Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins released a top six of Georgia, North Carolina, Florida State, South Carolina, Penn State and Tennessee.

Prior to revealing his final group, the 6-foot-5-inch, 298-pounder tweeted that he would announce his decision on Sunday, May 17.

Shortly after, he decided he needed some more time to make this life-changing decision.

Ingram-Dawkins now has a new commitment date of June 26, which is his birthday.

“I’m committing June 26th, on my birthday,” Ingram-Dawkins said on Instagram Live.

247Sports has Ingram-Dawkins as the nation’s No. 17 ranked defensive tackle and as the top player in the state of South Carolina.

Per the composite rankings, he is considered the nation’s 408th overall player.

Per 247Sports, South Carolina is viewed as the leader for Ingram-Dawkins, with Georgia close behind.

But Ingram-Dawkins said he does not pay much attention to the crystal ball on his 247Sports player profile.

The crystal ball is their way of  projecting where a recruit will land by having  a few recruiting analysts make predictions for specific players.

Georgia offered him in January and got him on campus in early-March.

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Georgia recruiting target JJ Jones moves up decision date

JJ Jones, a Georgia football recruiting target, has moved up his decision date.

Earlier in May, 2021 four-star wide receiver JJ Jones announced his top five schools on Twitter.

North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Mississippi State and Georgia made the cut for the Myrtle Beach High School prospect.

He had planned to announce his final decision on his birthday, August 5, but tweeted on Wednesday night that he will now be committing sometime next week.

Per the 247Sports Composite Rankings, Jones ranks as the nation’s 68 wide receiver, No. 3 player in South Carolina and No. 417 overall player in America.

Right now, 247Sports sees North Carolina as the favorite to land Jones, with South Carolina in second place.

In 2019, as a junior, Jones caught 45 passes for 707 yards and 15 touchdowns while being named to the All-Region team and third-team All State.

 

4-star DT Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins delays commitment: Considering UGA, Vols, FSU, more

4-star DT Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins has delayed his decision. He is considering Georgia football, South Carolina, UNC, Penn State, FSU and Vols.

On Monday, 2021 4-star defensive tackle Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins released a top-six of Georgia, North Carolina, Florida State, South Carolina, Penn State and Tennessee.

Shortly before revealing his final group, the 6-foot-5, 298 pounder announced that he would be announcing his decision on Sunday, May 17, at 3 p.m.

However, one day later, Ingram-Dawkins made a tweet saying that he’s decided to give his commitment “a little more thought.”

“I’ve decided to give my commitment a little more thought before making it on Sunday!!,” he said in a Tweet. “This is a life-changing decision that is very important to me!!”

247Sports has Ingram-Dawkins as the nation’s No. 17 ranked defensive tackle and as the top player in the state of South Carolina.

According to SportsTalkSC, Ingram-Dawkins will wait roughly 2-3 weeks.

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Notre Dame Offers 2021 3-Star Georgia Safety

Slocum is currently rated as the 17th best safety in the 2021 recruiting class by 247Sports and the 35th best player in Georgia.

The season may be over but the building for the future of Notre Dame football continues on the recruiting trail.

Currently ranked second by Rivals in the 2021 team recruiting rankings, Brian Kelly and his Fighting Irish coaching staff made an offer Monday to a safety who could potentially help that number.

Jaden Slocum, a 6-2, 181 pound safety from Alpharetta, Georgia tweeted Monday night that he had received a scholarship offer from Kelly and Notre Dame.

Slocum is currently rated as the 17th best safety in the 2021 recruiting class by 247Sports and the 35th best player in Georgia.

He already holds scholarship offers from Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Minnesota, Mississippi State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest.

UGA football among Bralyn Oliver’s top schools

Bralyn Oliver, a three-star safety, out of Honea Path, South Carolina put Georgia, Tennessee, Louisville, and others in his top schools.

Bralyn Oliver, a class of 2021 recruiting target for Georgia, is from Honea Path, South Carolina. Oliver plays at Belton Honea Path High School.

The three-star was the first player to commit to Georgia in the class of 2021. The safety announced his de-commitment on November 25th via Twitter:

Now, Georgia, Tennessee, Louisville, Duke and others were in the safety’s top ten. Oliver later deleted the Tweet.

Georgia is still building the class of 2021. Kirby Smart and Georgia is putting together a solid class of 2020, which has the early signing day this Wednesday. Oliver could help replace the loss of JR Reed after this season and the eventual departure of Richard LeCounte and Lewis Cine. Oliver likely wants to stay close to his South Carolina home.

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