Art Green primarily played wide receiver in high school, when he signed with Arkansas State, but he thought at the time that a move to the secondary might serve him well in college. His first year at the junior-college level has proved him right. After moving to cornerback last year going into his freshman season at Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College, the former Arkansas State signee has racked up scholarship offers from eight schools since Feb. 6, and he picked up his latest offer Wednesday night from Tennessee. The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Green already has landed offers from Illinois, Rutgers, Louisville, Houston, Massachusetts and Arkansas State since getting his first offer less than four weeks ago from South Carolina.
The list of teams pursuing him is likely to continue to grow, but he said adding an offer from Tennessee on Wednesday “was a big deal,” and he's already interested in visiting the Vols. “Tennessee was a big deal. It’s a nice place,” said Green, a former standout at Parkway Central High School in Chesterfield, Mo., a St. Louis suburb. “It’s one of my, like, dreams to play in the best conference in college football, and to play at Tennessee would be good.
Green said he learned of the offer from Tennessee during a conversation with Joe Osovet, a former junior-college head coach who’s now in his second year on the Vols’ staff. “It was out of the blue. I didn't expect it,” Green said. “Coach Oz, he texted me and said he wanted to talk to me, and I talked to him real quick. “(Tennessee likes) just my size and how I play, and they think that I’m a great player. He said talking over the phone that he thought I was a good kid and that I have my head on straight, have my priorities straight.”
“In high school, I said I wanted to play, like, safety or corner or something,” he said. “I felt like, if I wanted to make my career longer in football, I needed to make the change to defense. When I came up to juco, I told them that. "And then, like, two weeks into summer camp, (my coach) asked me, ‘Do you think about playing DB?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And then I just took it day by day.” He already has looked like a natural on defense. Despite playing only a part-time role and appearing in only eight games, he recorded six interceptions and 19 tackles during his first year at Hutchinson. Green’s size is among the reasons he has caught the attention of several major programs.