Tennessee football: Harrison Bailey is recruiting HS teammate Arik Gilbert

Harrison Bailey is trying to recruit his former high school teammate Arik Gilbert to the Tennessee football program.

With Arik Gilbert leaving the Florida Gators after a little over a month, his former high school teammate Harrison Bailey is pushing hard for him to join his Tennessee football team.

Gilbert caught passes from Bailey at Marietta High School in Marietta, Georgia. While Gilbert initially took his five-star status to LSU, Bailey opted to be a prized four-star recruit for the Tennessee Volunteers. Though LSU and Florida did not work out for the tight end, Bailey is hoping for a Knoxville reunion. Here he is trying to recruit his former high school teammate to Rocky Top.

https://twitter.com/HBailey_05/status/1366135695681667075

Tennessee could be the ultimate dark horse contender to land Arik Gilbert

Gilbert left Baton Rouge before the end of the 2020 college football season. He cited homesickness as a reason to leave the LSU program. While that is good and all, he committed to play for LSU’s cross-divisional rival Florida, which is just as far away from Marietta as Baton Rouge is. Knoxville is also a good distance away from Atlanta’s massive northwestern suburb.

While other programs such as Alabama, Auburn, Clemson and Georgia will vie for his commitment, maybe he does not want to go to a pressure cooker like any of those four programs would be? Tennessee is very much in the midst of a rebuild under new head coach Josh Heupel. Sanctions are inevitably coming, but Bailey does present a familiar face for a player who may have lost his way.

Let’s not cross off Tennessee as a realistic landing spot for Gilbert in the transfer portal just yet.

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