After leaving for Tennessee last month, new Vols coach
Josh Heupel didn’t wait long to reach out to
Damari Alston. Tennessee’s former staff hadn’t contacted Alston much in recent months despite giving him a scholarship offer in May, but he found himself back on the Vols’ radar almost immediately after Heupel’s hiring.
Tennessee now has plenty of competition for the four-star Class of 2022 running back from Woodward Academy in College Park, Ga., who has reported more than 50 offers. But he said the Vols’ new staff is “keeping tabs with me” and “making me feel like a priority.” and he’s “definitely looking forward to getting up there” and taking a firsthand look at Tennessee.
“I wasn’t really feeling a relationship a lot,” he said. “But now that Coach Heupel’s here, he’s making me feel like I’m more of a priority. ... I haven’t been to Tennessee yet. I’m definitely looking forward to getting up there, definitely because it’s not even that far from Atlanta.”
Alston said he’s talking with Heupel “about” every day at this point. “He’s making me feel like a priority,” Alston said. “He’s been telling me that I’m one of the top backs on the board right now for them, and once the whole staff got in, he was going to get me in touch with the running backs coach (
Jerry Mack) — things like that.
“Now he’s texting me every day. He calls me about once a week to make sure I’m doing all right — things like that — and he wants to talk to my parents soon, so we’ll set that up.”
“I’ve seen UCF play, and he runs, like, a spread type of offense,” Alston said of Heupel. “But he grounds and pounds it sometimes when he needs to, and that’s the type of system I’m in, honestly. … Like I said, we run that now in high school, so I feel like it would be a good fit for me to be in his system. We run that fast tempo, too.”
Alston described himself as “an all-around back” with a blend of speed, agility and power. “I can bring the full package,” he said. “I can give you some power. I can give you some elusiveness, that breakaway speed. I don’t feel like no one’s going to catch me once I hit the hole. I can make a defender miss any time that I need to. I can catch out of the backfield. Pass pro’s pretty good. Obviously, there’s things to work on, things to better. But I feel like I’m more of a complete back.”
