Vols Re-Offer Elite Florida Linebacker Raylen Wilson
A little over a year ago, Tennessee offered an offer to Raylen Wilson, an underclassman out of Lincoln High School (Fla.) under the Jeremy Pruitt administration.
On April 15th, 2021, Wilson was re-offered by Tennessee's new staff. Wilson caught up with VR2 on Sports Illustrated to update what has been going on.
The overall recruitment is "going really well," says Wilson despite the Covid-19 protocol and being an underclassman. The young athlete has taken and used his time wisely but got into the weight room and gained as much strength as possible.
For a reflection, Wilson is 6-foot-2 and weighs 208-pounds as a rising junior. Just what kind of strength does the Florida native possess?
Wilson has turned into a gym rat over the off-season and is now benching 315-pounds, squatting 435-pounds, power cleaning 290-pounds, runs a 4.58-second 40-yard dash and also has been testing his 225-pound bench test for the combine setting. He is currently averaging above 15 reps at the weight. As a current sophomore, those numbers are very solid and very intriguing to college coaches.
There seem to be a few schools that are making strides to separate themselves as they have a few coaches who have really built a solid relationship with Wilson. At this time, three coaches were named to have built the best relationship with Wilson; Coach Marve from Florida State, Coach Sims from USF, and Coach Pry from Penn State.
Staff change-overs can alter the recruitment of a prospect in a significant way. New staffs often bring on new schemes in which a player may not fit, though he may have fit the one before.
"It meant a lot to know that they still want me there with the new staff," Wilson told VR2 on SI about the latest offer from Tennessee.
Wilson has yet to talk with many of the coaches at Tennessee but has been in contact with at least one coach. "I talked to my position coach Brian Jean-Mary." Jean-Mary is the coach for linebackers at Tennessee.
There are no plans for a visit to Knoxville for the Florida athlete at this time, but the Tennessee staff can position themselves for more future contact and possibly a visit by staying in touch with Wilson.
As Wilson will just be a junior this upcoming fall, decisions will be made on several things. How hard will it be for the Vols or any other school to pull this young elite linebacker from the state of Florida? Wilson says, "Me staying close to home doesn't really affect where I will go."
It appears that if a school really wants Wilson, they need to prioritize him and maintain contact as the process continues.
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