The three-star senior wide receiver from Cedar Ridge High School in Round Rock, Texas, said he has heard plenty from the Vols since getting a scholarship offer from them more than four months ago, and he’s now planning to take an official visit to Tennessee, perhaps as early as this month. The 6-foot-1, 190-pound Ellis said he’s in the process of finalizing his trip to Knoxville, but he currently expects to visit the Vols the weekend of Oct. 20 for their home game against No. 1 Alabama.
“From one coach to another, I’m talking to them day in and day out. It’ll be Coach Pruitt or Coach ‘YAC’ — Coach Johnson — just talking to them, just getting ready for my visit that I am taking,” said Ellis, who’s ranked the No. 556 overall prospect and No. 71 wide receiver in the industry-generated 247Sports Composite for the 2019 class.
“It’s really been the same thing since they offered me. They’ve always shown love, always showed that same love. It’s the same attitude they’ve had with me this whole time, and nothing’s really changed.” Ellis said Pruitt and Johnson have talked with him about “just being able to see the field early” at Tennessee, “and they say that’s going to be huge.”
“The SEC, it’s a mini NFL, pretty much — the hardest (conference), I believe, there is — just being able to be in that,” Ellis said. “I’m going to be visiting during the Alabama game. There’s no bigger game for them, most likely, than that game, so just the tradition behind it and watching two big SEC teams like that go at it is going to be huge.
“I’ve just heard about the tradition at Tennessee. You’re not going to get any other feeling (like) you’ll get up there at a game like this. I have a friend, his mom, she worked at Alabama when she was in school. She was a trainer, and she was like, ‘You’ll never hate a place more, if you’re an opposite fan, than Tennessee.’ She was just like, ‘They’re so true to their Volunteers.’”
Nearby Texas is among the other teams showing interest in him, and he visited the Longhorns on Sept. 15 for their win over USC. He said he expects to use his final two official visits to travel to Baylor and Houston, with both trips likely to be scheduled for December.
Ellis admitted his final decision could be difficult. “It’s hard, just having big programs like the ones I have,” he said. “Michigan was huge. That was a big visit. And Arizona, I loved, too, so I can only picture the next three that I’m going to, how big they’re going to be. “It’s going to be hard, but I feel like, once I take all my visits, I’ll know for sure.”
