It’s not every day that a son of an NFL Hall of Famer shows up to campus to try and earn a scholarship offer. But that’s just what happened in Knoxville this weekend.
Shedeur Sanders, a pro-style quarterback who plays for Trinity Christian School in Cedar Hill, Texas, attended Tennessee’s camp over the weekend. He came to Knoxville without a scholarship offer from the Vols, but that changed once he camped in front of UT’s coaches. Sanders, who is the son of NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, left Tennessee with the offer he was looking for.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound quarterback in the 2021 class tweeted out a video showing some of the work he did at UT’s camp, and he mentioned picking up an offer from the Vols in the text of his tweet.
Blessed to receive an offer from the University of Tennessee! GOD is AMAZING! Worked very hard for this, Hard work pays off. This is just the beginning! #2 @DemetricDWarren @CoachJPruitt @ChrisWeinke16 @DeionSanders @TCCHFootball @ahart49 @Striving4_ALott pic.twitter.com/SbZXPAs7cN
— Shedeur Sanders (@ShedeurSanders) June 23, 2019
According to the 247Sports Composite rankings, Sanders is the No. 339 overall prospect and No. 17 pro-style quarterback in the 2021 recruiting cycle. Sanders just finished up his sophomore season in 2018, but he already holds offers from over a dozen schools, including Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Florida State, Michigan, LSU, and Oregon.
The Vols pursued one of Deion Sanders’ sons in the 2019 recruiting cycle briefly as well. Shilo Sanders, a three-star cornerback who also played for Trinity Christian School, picked up an offer from Tennessee in early November of 2018, but he ultimately committed to South Carolina in late January and signed with them on National Signing Day. Shedeur picked up an offer from the Gamecocks himself earlier this month.
Deion himself tweeted out a photo of his son’s trip to Knoxville:
@ShedeurSanders taking it all in. #Truth @TCCHFootball @Prime_239 pic.twitter.com/4NSl4Tfszi
— Deion Sanders (@DeionSanders) June 23, 2019
As for Shedeur, he presents a ton of upside and could develop into one of the top names in the quarterback class of 2021.
Sanders throws a beautiful deep ball, and he has the perfect amount of zip or touch on his deep passes depending on the situation. He has pretty good pocket awareness too, getting rid of the ball when he needs to but also scrambling to extend the play when needed as well. He can move pretty well, but he’s not really a dual-threat quarterback. Sanders has solid vision and instincts, and he can make a variety of throws to all points on the field. His throwing motion is unique, and it allows him to get good power behind his throws. It does, however, tend to take a little longer than you’d like, but it’s not a large wind-up by any means.
As a sophomore last season, Sanders completed 61.2 percent of his 289 pass attempts for 3,088 yards, 42 touchdowns, and seven interceptions while running for eight more scores according to MaxPreps. He had two games where he recorded 300-plus passing yards and threw for four or more touchdowns in seven games.
Tennessee has a number of 2021 quarterbacks they’re already keeping tabs on, and Sanders has just been added to that list. With five-star Brock Vandagriff committing to Oklahoma last week, UT’s top target in the 2021 class is a little uncertain now. Jalen Kitna, Christian Veilleux, Jake Garcia, and Drake Maye are just a few names the Vols have already started pursuing.
