‘23 IN LB Aycen Stevens

#5
#5
The 6-foot-4, 210-pound Stevens said he’s not ready to name any early favorites among the eight schools pursuing him. But he’s already giving Tennessee strong consideration, and there’s a reason he already has made three trips to Knoxville since late June.

“I really love the place,” he said. “I do feel like they’re doing a really good job of recruiting me, too. They try to get me down as much as possible, so that’s a big thing. I like to show people love that show me love.”

Stevens said he was encouraged by the Vols’ performance Saturday afternoon, even in a losing effort.

“They didn’t come up with the win,” he said. “I feel like they made some not errors, but just errors at the wrong time. I feel like, if they clean that stuff up, they’re going to win some big games this year. I can already tell with the new coaching staff.”

He said he believes Tennessee is on the right track under first-year coach Josh Heupel’s staff because of “just the energy on the sidelines, (and) energy in the stands, really, too.”

Stevens said he wasn’t necessarily focused on the outcome of Saturday’s game going into the visit.

“That’s not really a concern on my part, because I know from the past experience, from where they’ve been, they turn programs around,” he said of Heupel’s staff. “They win football games, so I’m not really worried about that.

“There wasn’t really anything that I particularly looked for going into the game. I just wanted to see how I would fit into their program, I guess.”

Tennessee is recruiting him to play linebacker, while some other teams have expressed interest in playing him at other positions.

“We talked about it a little bit, because I play inside and outside linebacker, so I’m not really sure once I get to college where exactly I’ll be playing,” Stevens said. “The more positions I play, the better chance (I will have) of getting on the field, which is always a plus.

“But the way they play, they’re fast and physical, which I think my game fits that,” he added, referring to the Vols. “Really, whatever gets me on the field first.”

Mike Ekeler, Tennessee’s outside linebacker coach and special teams coordinator, has stayed in contact with Stevens on a regular basis, along with Alex Golesh, the Vols’ offensive coordinator and tight ends coach. Tennessee quarterbacks coach Joey Halzle also stopped at Decatur Central on Sept. 3 to check on Stevens, who’s the younger brother of former Penn State and Mississippi State quarterback Tommy Stevens.

“He just stopped by during the day,” the younger Stevens said of Halzle. “That was a really big deal. With my brother, he always used to have coaches come in and see him during school, and I always thought that was pretty cool. So them being the first team to actually come in and see me during school was pretty cool.

“I talk to Coach Ekeler a lot, and Coach Golesh. They usually hit me up at least twice a week, probably, if I had to guess. I got to talk to them before the game and after the game, so it was pretty cool. They were just glad to see us, see me and the family again. We talked a little bit about the game after. … They just felt like they should’ve won. They made some costly mistakes there toward the end, which was just a timing thing.”
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-Callahan
 
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#10
#10
jvols1999 said:
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Vols didn’t make it despite him coming to campus for back to back weekend visits and clearly liking it a lot. He’s got a nice list of schools to choose from so good for him. But hard to read anything other than really positive vibes from that viz. where our staff thinks they are with the LB (OLB/ILB, he was a hybrid of sorts) board. Because IMO he’s a nice looking prospect who you’d try to stay in the mix with unless you thought you were in very deep with a lot of players you like better, whether they’re Rico Walker at OLB or Allen/Rojas at ILB, or others.
 
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#11
#11
jvols1999 said:
Vols didn’t make it despite him coming to campus for back to back weekend visits and clearly liking it a lot. He’s got a nice list of schools to choose from so good for him. But hard to read anything other than really positive vibes from that viz. where our staff thinks they are with the LB (OLB/ILB, he was a hybrid of sorts) board. Because IMO he’s a nice looking prospect who you’d try to stay in the mix with unless you thought you were in very deep with a lot of players you like better, whether they’re Rico Walker at OLB or Allen/Rojas at ILB, or others.
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Given how well things look at OLB (Herring, Bradley, etc) makes sense
 
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#16
#16
CamSnod1997 said:
I’d say we’re probably looking at bigger fish via Tellander, Allen, Rojas etc.
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I haven't watched Stevens really so I'm not going to act like I know much about his game and say who is better in my opinion, but Stevens is substantially higher in the rankings than Telander for all of 247, Rivals, and On3 so I don't know if it was necessarily looking at bigger fish
 
#17
#17
allvolrecruiting said:
I haven't watched Stevens really so I'm not going to act like I know much about his game and say who is better in my opinion, but Stevens is substantially higher in the rankings than Telander for all of 247, Rivals, and On3 so I don't know if it was necessarily looking at bigger fish
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Haven’t heard his name mention on VQ but have heard Tellander, Rojas, and Allen’s name mentions much more often.
 
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#18
#18
CamSnod1997 said:
Haven’t heard his name mention on VQ but have heard Tellander, Rojas, and Allen’s name mentions much more often.
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They've mentioned him some. They said the staff really liked him when he came to visit. It's just he is from Indiana and the other ones are from Georgia, beside Rojas who is the #1 realistic LB on our board pretty much, so they have been able to visit a ton. Would also imagine they have a lot more connections to people in the southeast than that area where Stevens plays. We'll be fine obviously tho. I think Telander is very underranked tho. Really like his upside. Might be better, but I can't say he's better, or worse, than someone I haven't watched yet
 
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#19
#19
allvolrecruiting said:
They've mentioned him some. They said the staff really liked him when he came to visit. It's just he is from Indiana and the other ones are from Georgia, beside Rojas who is the #1 realistic LB on our board pretty much, so they have been able to visit a ton. Would also imagine they have a lot more connections to people in the southeast than that area where Stevens plays. We'll be fine obviously tho. I think Telander is very underranked tho. Really like his upside. Might be better, but I can't say he's better, or worse, than someone I haven't watched yet
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Yeah they mentioned him when he visited but not very much here recently.
 
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#20
#20
allvolrecruiting said:
I haven't watched Stevens really so I'm not going to act like I know much about his game and say who is better in my opinion, but Stevens is substantially higher in the rankings than Telander for all of 247, Rivals, and On3 so I don't know if it was necessarily looking at bigger fish
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Telander does have better offers overall.
 
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#24
#24
RiseToTheTop said:
Telander does have better offers overall.
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Because with the occasional reach to somewhere a long ways away, you usually recruit the players within a certain parameter of your location. Most of the top schools are in the southeast. One is in Georgia around all these schools, and one is in Indiana. People down here get way more exposure when considering schools in the eastern part of the US. Even Ohio State recruits a ton in the southeast instead
 
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