KNOXVILLE — Lane Kiffin’s second University of Tennessee football recruiting class still needs a quarterback lynchpin, and the Volunteers received a relatively big blow to that cause Thursday.
Jake Heaps, the nation’s top high school quarterback according to several recruiting services, surprised many by announcing his commitment to Brigham Young University.
Heaps, a Mormon from Washington, held his news conference in Salt Lake City, less than an hour’s drive from BYU’s campus in Provo, Utah.
The 6-foot-2, 195-pound Heaps has been known nationally since a sensational highlight tape from his sophomore season surfaced on recruiting sites. He had dozens of major college offers, but he narrowed his list to BYU, California, LSU, Washington and Tennessee.
Many close to Heaps’ recruitment envisioned him picking between the Vols and Washington — both now coached by former Southern Cal offensive coordinators, Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian — but Heaps told reporters in Utah that BYU was “the perfect place for me.
“I know that BYU is the place that can help me reach my goals more than anyone else,” Heaps said. “We can win a national championship here.”
He was far from the Vols’ only 2010 quarterback prospect, but he was at least near the top of their board. He visited Knoxville and consistently praised the energy around the program.
Kiffin and his assistants have evaluated quarterbacks from seemingly every corner of the country, but they’ve been cautious with their offers. They likely won’t stop recruiting Heaps or Rivals.com’s other top-rated pro-style quarterback prospect, Virginia’s Phillip Sims, an Alabama pledge. And pocket passers Andrew Hendrix from Cincinnati and Jesse Scroggins from California have UT offers, as does highly regarded dual-threat quarterback Munchie Legaux from Louisiana.
Memphis University School’s Barry Brunetti was at UT’s camp earlier this week and said he would “love” an offer from the Vols. But it remains uncertain whether Kiffin will stray from his preference for tall pocket passers and make an offer to Brunetti — a 6-foot, 205-pound, dual-threat player.
“I can’t call God and tell him to make get me more height,” Brunetti told Rivals.com earlier this week. “I did the best I could (at UT’s camp) and felt like I showed them what I could do.”
