Gray, Hampton win Mr. Football awards
NASHVILLE — Lausanne’s Eric Gray writes out all of his goals on a dream board made of sticky notes on his wall. One of the bigger goals on that board came came to fruition on Sunday at Nissan Stadium, where he won his third straight Mr. Football award, becoming the first player ever to do so.
“It’s like deja-vu, I’ve seen it all before. Everybody’s coming up to me, I bet you know the routine by now and stuff like that,” said Gray. “But yeah, its fun to be able to do this even though we came up one game short of the state championship, but I feel like winning this and getting to ball with my brothers one last time is a success.”
MUS’s Maurice Hampton won the DII-AAA Mr. Football award becoming the first MUS player to win a Mr. Football award since 2016 when current teammate Dorian Hopkins took home the DII-AA Mr. Football lineman award as a sophomore.
“Me and Dorian have been playing together since 7th grade,” said Hampton. “He’s been messing with me all season like ‘oh, you’re going to win Mr. Football’, so we actually had a bet going on whether I was going to win or not, so now he owes me a meal.”
But first, Hampton and MUS will take on Brentwood Academy in the DII-AAA state championship game Friday night at 7 p.m. at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville.
Eric Gray: It’s hard to say I’m still committed to Michigan
Gray, who plans to sign in December says that he still has to make up his mind but that a decision will come “soon.”
“With Michigan, I’m kind of hanging in the balance, I haven’t been there in about five months,” said Gray. “It’s hard to say that I’m still committed there when I haven been there in a while, so I’m still looking, still trying to figure it out. I still have two officials left, so I’ll make my decision and then December 19th is when I sign.”
Those official visits will likely be to two of the following three schools; Ole Miss, Alabama, and Texas A&M. Gray initially planned to visit Texas A&M Saturday but had a schedule conflict with the Mr. Football ceremony.
So far, Gray has officially visited Penn State, Michigan, and Tennessee. Gray says that if he doesn’t stick with Michigan, he will likely pick an SEC school because of distance-related concerns.
“Its so far away, and it was hard for me to get to a game and I was thinking ‘if it’s hard for me to get to a game, how are my parents going to get to a game?’,” said Gray. “How are they going to get to the game when we go play Wisconsin or something like that? How are they going to get to those games? And for me thinking about the SEC and how much closer it is for my family and me to travel, that was really the ultimate decision.”
Hampton to visit LSU, Florida, Auburn
Hampton, who has been committed to LSU since freshman year says that he is still “pretty solid” with the Tigers. He plans to sign in February.
“It’s not because I want to wait,” said Hampton of waiting until February. “Its just that my friends, like Dorian and a couple other guys are signing then and I want to be able to sign with my friends.”
Hampton will visit LSU next week, and plans to visit Florida and Auburn as well.