The Tallahassee, Fla. prospect has the Tennessee football Volunteers in his top 11.
With the possibility of losing two cornerbacks after this year and maybe even more, Tennessee football clearly has work to do in the secondary. Jeremy Pruitt got one step closer to doing that with news ahead of the weekend.
Rocky Top made the cut for Florida defensive back Terrion Arnold. A four-star across all major service ratings, Arnold stands somewhere between 6’0″ and 6’2″ while weighing somewhere between 180 and 185 pounds. He is listed as a safety on 247Sports and ESPN and a cornerback on Rivals and is a top 200 player on all the services.
In addition to Tennessee football, Arnold had the Florida State Seminoles, Florida Gators, Alabama Crimson Tide, Georgia Bulldogs, Miami Hurricanes, LSU Tigers, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, Texas A&M Aggies, Oklahoma Sooners and USC Trojans on his list. He announced his top 11 Friday afternoon on Twitter.
As most people know I have been taking my recruitment slow and trying to find the best fit for me. With that being said these are the schools I will be continuing with... The journey is just beginning #11 pic.twitter.com/xTPz5mxFOy
— Terrion “𝔾ℍ𝕆𝕊𝕋" Arnold (@ArnoldTerrion) August 28, 2020
Coming out of John Paul II Catholic in Tallahassee, Fla., Arnold is the No. 28 ranked player within the state on Rivals. He’s a top 25 player at his position unanimously, regardless of whether or not he’s listed as a safety or cornerback.
Heading into the season, Tennessee football has two seniors in Shawn Shamburger and Kenneth George Jr. along with a junior phenom in Bryce Thompson who is likely to leave early for the pros. Although all three could return, Shamburger is likely to join Thompson at the very least given how much he has proven as an elite nickel.
This leaves Pruitt with quite a few openings in the secondary. So far, he has secured four defensive backs in Jay Jones, Edwin White, De’Shawn Rucker and Damarius McGhee. While Jones and White are from Alabama, Rucker and McGhee are both from the Florida panhandle, just like Arnold. In fact, Rucker is from Tallahassee as well.
Still, none of these guys have a unanimous four-star or higher rating, and McGhee is the only one with any four-star rating on any of the services. There’s more help in in-state athlete Elijah Howard and North Carolina athlete Kaeman Marley.
However, Howard is also a three-star and likely to play running back. Marley is a four-star, but he’ll likely get his first look at receiver. Simply put, Tennessee football has more work to do to bolster their defensive back situation in the future.
As of right now, Alabama is the favorite by a plurality to land Arnold on the Rivals Future Cast and the Rivals Fan Future Cast. Florida is the favorite by a plurality on the 247Sports Crystal Ball, with Bama and FSU tied for second. Simply put, Arnold’s recruitment is wide open. He’d be a great fit for Pruitt’s system, so UT should continue to pursue him heavily.