After visiting Tennessee for the first time in January,
Ahmad Brown returned to Knoxville on Saturday to take another look at the Vols and attend their first major scrimmage of the spring. While he was there, they officially joined the growing list of SEC teams pursuing him.
The Class of 2023 athlete from Crisp County High School in Cordele, Ga., picked up a scholarship offer from Tennessee on Saturday during his second visit with the Vols in less than three months. They’re the only SEC program he has visited to this point, but he said they’re now his leader among the nearly 20 schools that have extended offers to him.
“They’re top-two — well, top one, if you want me to be honest,” said Brown, who’s ranked the No. 595 overall prospect and No. 51 athlete in the 2023 class and the No. 52 junior from the state of Georgia, according to the industry-generated 247Sports Composite.
The 6-foot-1, 195-pound Brown said he wasn’t completely caught off guard by the offer. He had been told that Tennessee might be on the verge of giving him an offer, but he said it still was “really shocking.”
“There’s a trainer that told me they wanted me to come back up there,” he said. “And that’s a school I’m interested in, so I went up there. … I was honored and blessed to receive that.”
Brown said Vols defensive coordinator
Tim Banks informed him of the offer. Banks, defensive backs coach
Willie Martinez and others on Tennessee’s staff have told him they like that he’s “very athletic.”
“I’ve got very good instincts for the game, and that was basically what they were telling me,” Brown said. “They were saying that I was long and all that type of stuff.”
He said the Vols are recruiting him primarily as a possible safety, although he’s capable of playing multiple positions in the secondary.
“They say safety,” Brown said. “They could use me at anything — safety, (defensive back), slot cornerback. … There are schools recruiting me as a wide receiver and DB.”
Arkansas, South Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt are among the other schools that have extended offers to Brown. He hasn’t visited any of them, but he said he’s scheduled to travel to South Carolina on Saturday.
He said Tennessee is already standing out to him because of “the coaches.”
“I could see that they’re very serious about their players,” Brown said. “I see that they have fun. They enjoy going there. And not only with football — like, with life. They help you out with life, and I like stuff like that.”
The Vols’ coaches, he said, are “just like my coach up here” at Crisp County. Brown said Tennessee’s staff and players impressed him during Saturday’s scrimmage.
“It was energetic, fast-paced,” he said. “People were out there having fun, talking a whole lot of junk — stuff like that. I love seeing stuff like that, too.”
He’s not sure when he might return to Tennessee, but he said he expects to make it back to Knoxville at some point.
“I know I might go back there soon,” Brown said, adding that he doesn’t plan to visit the Vols again before they wrap up spring practice.
Wake Forest is scheduled to host him on Tuesday before his planned trip to South Carolina next weekend, and he said he’s set to travel to Vanderbilt on April 16.
For now, Brown doesn’t expect to make his college decision until this fall.
“Midseason, I want to go ahead and make my mind up on where I want to go,” he said.