Jeremy Pruitt and his coaching staff are doing all they can to bring some of the top recruits in the 2019 class to Tennessee. They already have a commitment from five-star offensive tackle Wanya Morris and commitments from five other players who are rated as four-stars by the 247Sports Composite rankings. And the Vols’ staff are in a great spot with one of the top prospects in this cycle, and he keeps showing off his UT gear.
Quavaris Crouch is a five-star athlete and is rated as the No. 1 athlete in the 2019 class according to the 247Sports Composite rankings. He’s shown a lot of interest in Tennessee since Jeremy Pruitt took over as head coach, visiting three times in 2018 alone. And now he’s caused more waves among Vol nation with a recent post to his Twitter account.
Crouch tweeted out a video of himself running up and down a steep hill on Wednesday afternoon. But what will stand out the most about his video is his shorts, which are Smokey Grey and have orange stripes down the side with the Power T at the bottom.
MUD WORK …….. #HillDay pic.twitter.com/BXwB3FsHN9
— JuupJuup Crouch (@CrouchQuavaris) June 27, 2018
This isn’t the first time Crouch has posted a video of himself working out in Tennessee gear, though. He did something similar back in mid-May of this year too.
FOCUS….. #SayLess pic.twitter.com/tThkhJN2XX
— JuupJuup Crouch (@CrouchQuavaris) May 15, 2018
Crouch has picked up interest from most of the top schools in the country. Clemson, Michigan, Alabama, and Florida State have pushed the hardest for him along with Tennessee. But Knoxville is where he’s visited the most. He did recently unofficially visit Michigan earlier this month and also has unofficially visited South Carolina and Florida State over the last couple months. But he’s been to UT three times over the last six months.
Crouch — who hails from Charlotte, North Carolina — plays both running back and linebacker in high school, and he’s been wildly successful at both. But with his size and style of play, he may project better at linebacker in college. He’s already almost 6-foot-3, 240 pounds, and he could add even more muscle and mass to his frame once he gets to college.
Looking at his film, it’s easy to see why analysts and coaches love Crouch. He tough as nails on both sides of the ball and has exceptional speed for a linebacker and is very fast for his size as a running back too. He’s explosive on defense and is extremely hard to bring down on offense. Even if he switches to defense as his primary position in college, he should still get some “beast package” carries on offense because of how effective he is as a runner too.
As a junior, Crouch nearly set a record for most rushing yards in a single season in the county he plays in. Last season, he ran for 3,283 yards and 33 touchdowns, and that included a performance in which he totaled 334 yards on just 21 carries. That performance was good enough for the 14th-most yards in a single game in Mecklenburg County history. The record for the most rushing yards in a single season in county history came from Elijah Hood in 2013 when he ran for 3,609 yards. Hood went on to have a successful career with North Carolina in college and is now on the Oakland Raiders roster in the NFL.
But as stated above, Crouch doesn’t just play running back. He also plays linebacker for Harding, and even in his more limited time on defense he still totaled 48 tackles and 14 sacks.
Steve Wiltfong, the Director of Recruiting for 247Sports, said last month that he thinks the Vols are early leaders for both Crouch and five-star offensive tackle Darnell Wright in the 2019 class.
Landing Crouch in the 2019 class would be a massive statement from Pruitt and his staff in their first full year at Tennessee. Time will tell where Crouch ultimately ends up, but the Vols seem to be in a very good spot with the No. 1 athlete in the 2019 cycle right now.
