Tennessee football recruiting: Vols offer 2020 Mississippi State commit at DE/OLB

Tennessee football is not holding back on the recruiting trail now. The Volunteers offered Mississippi State Bulldogs commit Jevon Banks.

Jeremy Pruitt is looking everywhere for future edge rushers, including commitments to other schools. And one program that Tennessee football continues to be targeting is the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

For the second time in less than two weeks, the Vols extended an offer to an MSU commit. This time, he’s a guy who doubles as a defensive end and an outside linebacker. And he comes from just outside the Memphis area.

Jevon Banks, a three-star on Rivals out of Olive Branch High School in Olive Branch, Miss. is the prospect who received the offer from Tennessee football. He announced the news on Twitter Friday morning.

Olive Branch is in DeSoto County, which is a suburb of Memphis. So despite being in Mississippi and committed to the Bulldogs since February, there is good reason to believe that if he were to look elsewhere, Rocky Top would be a great destination.

At 6’2″ 240 pounds, Banks is the type of guy who would bring a certain level of versatility to Pruitt’s defense. With Darrell Taylor, Deandre Johnson and Jordan Allen all a junior or a senior heading into 2019, it’s clear that he needs such versatile players to line up on the outside.

Banks follows Emmanuel Forbes Jr. as Mississippi State commits offered by Tennessee football. A four-star athlete on Rivals, Forbes was offered earlier this month, and just this week, news broke from Brent Hubbs on Volquest that Forbes hopes to visit Rocky Top. Forbes hails from Grenada, Miss.

So it’s safe to say Tennessee football is having an impact on Mississippi State commits from within the state right now. Whether or not Pruitt can keep it up remains to be seen, but he certainly has his footprint all over the south.

Getting Banks to change his mind would be huge for the Vols in the future. He would help alleviate one concern Pruitt has about his future personnel beyond 2020, so it makes sense for Pruitt to look to players committed to Starkville, or anywhere for that matter, to get that help.