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Just read a great article by Patrick Brown titled
“Five-star athlete 'pretty close' with Vols, nearing decision”
There’s no unanimous, clear frontrunner for Arik, but as Chad Simmons reported a little while back, the scenario very much seems to be a UT & UGA battle. As Chad noted, the Vols made up some big ground the last time he visited and kinda seems to have a leg up in the competition.
In case you missed it, this to me was the most intriguing part of his June 5th piece:
“Who's truly in this race? Out of the 10 schools he named, Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and Tennessee are schools on another level than the others. There could even be a top two of Georgia and Tennessee, but an official visit to Alabama is coming up June 14 and you can never sleep on Clemson.
Tennessee had Gilbert on campus recently to play paint ball, and some feel the Vols could be the school trending right now. His teammate, good friend and quarterback Harrison Bailey, is committed to Tennessee, so he is in Gilbert's ear daily.”
And Patrick Brown’s latest update offers a little more clarity on why Arik likes UT:
“Gilbert in March said the Vols were “on me hard,” and he visited Tennessee last month, when the Vols hosted a handful of their priority targets and had them play paintball with coaches and current players.
The Vols have current and former Marietta players helping recruit Gilbert for them. Wide receiver Ramel Keyton is a freshman at Tennessee and enrolled in January, and four-star quarterback Harrison Bailey is a long-time Tennessee commitment who's settled into a role as a recruiter for his future team. Gilbert said he continues to hear plenty from Keyton and Bailey about how much the Vols need him, and he's certainly listening.
“I’m pretty close to them, too,” Gilbert said. “With Harrison, he’s always on me about going up there. Ramel stays talking to me. Ramel’s just telling if I come up there, we can build something special, just trying to bring Marietta to Tennessee.”
Marietta has another Tennessee target in four-star weak-side defensive end BJ Ojulari, whose older brother plays at Georgia, and he and Gilbert have spoken about playing together in college.
“Me and B.J. are pretty close,” Gilbert said. “We talk and hit each other up about where we’re trying to go. As far as with Tennessee, I think he really likes them, too.”
It seems the idea of having a Marietta pipeline of players at UT is very appealing to him.
Another interesting update: 2021 4 star DT Tim Keenan, who is out of Birmingham, Alabama, just had a nice visit at UT. He plans to be back very soon. He’s quite a large human being at 6-2 and 340 lbs.
“Five-star athlete 'pretty close' with Vols, nearing decision”
There’s no unanimous, clear frontrunner for Arik, but as Chad Simmons reported a little while back, the scenario very much seems to be a UT & UGA battle. As Chad noted, the Vols made up some big ground the last time he visited and kinda seems to have a leg up in the competition.
In case you missed it, this to me was the most intriguing part of his June 5th piece:
“Who's truly in this race? Out of the 10 schools he named, Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and Tennessee are schools on another level than the others. There could even be a top two of Georgia and Tennessee, but an official visit to Alabama is coming up June 14 and you can never sleep on Clemson.
Tennessee had Gilbert on campus recently to play paint ball, and some feel the Vols could be the school trending right now. His teammate, good friend and quarterback Harrison Bailey, is committed to Tennessee, so he is in Gilbert's ear daily.”
And Patrick Brown’s latest update offers a little more clarity on why Arik likes UT:
“Gilbert in March said the Vols were “on me hard,” and he visited Tennessee last month, when the Vols hosted a handful of their priority targets and had them play paintball with coaches and current players.
The Vols have current and former Marietta players helping recruit Gilbert for them. Wide receiver Ramel Keyton is a freshman at Tennessee and enrolled in January, and four-star quarterback Harrison Bailey is a long-time Tennessee commitment who's settled into a role as a recruiter for his future team. Gilbert said he continues to hear plenty from Keyton and Bailey about how much the Vols need him, and he's certainly listening.
“I’m pretty close to them, too,” Gilbert said. “With Harrison, he’s always on me about going up there. Ramel stays talking to me. Ramel’s just telling if I come up there, we can build something special, just trying to bring Marietta to Tennessee.”
Marietta has another Tennessee target in four-star weak-side defensive end BJ Ojulari, whose older brother plays at Georgia, and he and Gilbert have spoken about playing together in college.
“Me and B.J. are pretty close,” Gilbert said. “We talk and hit each other up about where we’re trying to go. As far as with Tennessee, I think he really likes them, too.”
It seems the idea of having a Marietta pipeline of players at UT is very appealing to him.
Another interesting update: 2021 4 star DT Tim Keenan, who is out of Birmingham, Alabama, just had a nice visit at UT. He plans to be back very soon. He’s quite a large human being at 6-2 and 340 lbs.
