Jermaine Terry has been eager to visit Tennessee since the Vols gave him his first scholarship offer almost four months ago, and he got a chance to make the trip to Knoxville this week. It more than lived up to his expectations. The four-star Class of 2021 tight end from Kennedy High School in Richmond, Calif., said his first visit to Tennessee on Thursday and Friday turned out to be “probably my best visit I’ve had so far,” and he now views it as “one of my top schools, for sure.”
The 6-foot-4, 235-pound Terry said he’s already hoping to return there as early as this season, perhaps for one of the Vols’ home games. “Tennessee, that’s the school I just had to get there, just because they offered first,” said Terry, who’s ranked by 247Sports as the No. 98 overall prospect and No. 4 tight end in the 2021 class. “They’re the people that showed me love. They’re the people that gave me a chance when everybody overlooked me, so I’m always holding that offer close to my heart.
“I really could see myself there in the next two years. But we’re going to see what this recruiting process brings and where it takes me.” Terry, who also traveled to Alabama on Saturday to attend the Crimson Tide’s camp, spent parts of Thursday and Friday visiting Tennessee, and he said he was impressed by the Vols’ campus and facilities, along with their players and coaches.
“That was probably my best visit I’ve had so far,” he said. “Just the hospitality there and just the people, I feel like they were real. I really enjoyed it. I can see myself there in the next two years. “(The facilities) exceeded my expectations. I didn’t expect it to be like that. Everything was just great. And I feel like is really an up-and-coming program, and Coach (Jeremy) Pruitt, he’s got the right people to make it happen.” Terry said he had talked with Tennessee tight ends coach
Brian Niedermeyer “a little bit” before the visit.
His time on campus allowed him to get to know Niedermeyer better, and he said he also met with Pruitt and Vols wide receivers coach
Tee Martin. “I got to talk to a little bit of everybody,” Terry said. “But I was mostly talking to
Tee Martin, Coach Niedermeyer, and I talked to Pruitt after. He was just telling me how much they wanted me and how I could be a mismatch in their offense. “They just envision me being a tight end that can put my hand in the ground, attach to the line, block, go out for routes, a tight end that can play outside, slot. “They just expect me to be a huge mismatch when I come in and somebody that's ready to get to work.”
Even Tennessee’s players and other people in and around the program made an impression on him Terry during the visit. “The thing that really surprised me was the diversity in the program,” he said. “Me being from California, you have the South that’s predominantly white, and there was a lot of African-Americans, a lot of Latinos — a lot of different races — and I liked the diversity there.”
Niedermeyer and one of Tennessee’s current tight ends, senior starter
Dominick Wood-Anderson, both talked extensively with Terry. “I just feel like he’s a real person,” Terry said of Niedermeyer. “He’s not going to sugarcoat anything. He’s not going to sell you a dream. He’s going to be 100 with you, and he’s just going to try to develop you. He sees potential in every one of his players, and he stresses that to them every day.
“I got to chill with one of the tight ends there, Dom — the starting tight end, number 4. I just got to talk to him a little bit, chop it up with him. He just told me how good of a program it was and how great the people are here — the fans, the players and coaches. “He said, when he came, it just felt like home, and it was the same feeling for me.”
Terry said he’s open to attending a school in the Southeast, and while “the conference really doesn’t matter to me,” the idea of playing in the SEC is appealing to him. “A lot people ask me if I’m worried about staying close to home or anything like that. To be honest, I’ll go anywhere in the world if it feels like home and I feel like I can get developed as a football player and a person. So that really isn’t a huge factor to me,” he said.
“I just want to go somewhere that feels like home. The SEC would be a great place for me to play, just because of how much they use tight ends and how tight ends fare there. But I’m just going to keep going through the recruiting process.” Terry now is hoping to make the make the trip to Knoxville again.
“I want to come for a game,” he said. “I just want to see how the players react, how the coaches react. I really want to see them. I don’t just want to come again on a regular day. They could act any certain way. I want to see how they act when it gets dirty and when it’s time to put them pads on and really get to work and it’s time to win.” He said he’s hoping to decide on a college around “the middle of my junior year,” adding that he’s “going to drop a top 10 probably later this year.”
