VOLS GET GREAT NEWS
One of the nation’s top college football recruits commits.
KNOXVILLE — Tennessee completed the quarterback swap for its 2016 football recruiting class Wednesday afternoon.
Four- star prospect Jarrett Guarantano from Bergen Catholic High School in New Jersey announced his pick of the Volunteers over Rutgers and national champion Ohio State during a ceremony at his school.
Bleacher Report simultaneously released a video of Guarantano standing pensively in Times Square in New York City while screenshots of Twitter messages from fans of his three finalists calling for him to commit to their favored school flashed across the background and he voiced a message.
“This is my decision. Nobody else’s,” he said in the video. “I’ve worked too many early mornings, too many late nights not to do what’s best for me. No more noise. No more clutter. No more distractions. I’m ready for what the future holds.”
The video ended with Guarantano looking at a billboard on the corner of a building, on which Tennessee’s logo and name were superimposed, and the 6-foot-4, 200-pound dual-threat quarterback saying, “Knoxville, Tennessee, here I come.”
At the ceremony at Bergen, Guarantano slipped on a bright orange
Tennessee hat to announce his pick.
“With Tennessee, I think it’s a 40- year plan, just knowing that Coach Butch (Jones) is always going to be there for me and Coach (Mike) DeBord (Tennessee’s new offensive coordinator) just being there,” Guarantano told The Record of North New Jersey. “I think my family was very comfortable there. And, I mean, SEC football, there’s nowhere better than that.
“I’m ecstatic right now. Me and my family, I think they’re very happy with my decision. You could see it on their faces. I got a little emotional during the press conference, just because I love my family so much. I think I’ll strive for Tennessee, and I’m really happy to just be there.”
The Vols were expecting good news from Guarantano’s announcement, and their odds increased when the Buckeyes took a commitment from Tristen Wallace, a four-star dual-threat quarterback out of Texas.
While Rutgers’ Piscataway campus is less than 50 miles from Guarantano’s high school, Tennessee had a unique connection that helped it land a top quarterback recruit.
James Guarantano, Jarrett’s father, was an AllBig East Conference wide receiver at Rutgers while Jones was a graduate assistant there from 1990 to 1992.
“My relationship started with (Jones) very sincere,” James Guarantano told the Asbury Park Press. “We were very close in age. He was a young man that I always respected and knew that he had a bright future as a coach.
“When I knew that he got hired, I thought they were going to be a player for all the right reasons. It’s Tennessee and they don’t have to take a back seat to anybody. To have a young, dynamic coach that I know at the end of the day I can pull away in my car and trust that he is going to take care of (Jarrett), that was pretty much (everything).”
Jarrett Guarantano’s scholarship offer list included Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss, Clemson, Duke, Notre Dame, UCLA, Oklahoma, Penn State and many others.
During a junior season cut short by an injury, Guarantano completed 88 of 153 passes for 1,030 yards with nine touchdowns and nine interceptions and added 258 rushing yards and four touchdown runs in seven games.
Tennessee kept recruiting Guarantano even while Austin Kendall, a four-star quarterback out of the Charlotte area, was committed to the Vols. Kendall reopened his recruitment a little more than a month ago after he was a Tennessee pledge for seven months. He recently committed to Oklahoma.
The Vols signed three quarterbacks in their 2015 class. Quinten Dormady and Jauan Jennings are freshmen currently going through spring practice, and Sheriron Jones is slated to arrive in the summer. Rising junior Josh Dobbs is the only other scholarship quarterback currently on the roster.
Guarantano is the fourth four-star prospect, according to 247Sports, among Tennessee’s seven-commitment 2016 class.
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfree press.com.