'22 MS TE Blake Gunter

[SLICKYINC]

Blake Gunter, 2022 Tight end - Rivals.com

 

[Maxwell865]

Tight end Blake Gunter of Madison (Miss.) Central High School landed an offer from the Vols on Tuesday night before joining in for Thursday’s Zoom call.

“It was great,” said Gunter, who also holds offers from Ole Miss, Florida State, Arkansas and West Virginia, among others. “It was basically just the coaching staff introducing (themselves) and outlining their vision for the future to some of their top targets.

“I really like them. I knew them already from UCF. They seem to be a really genuine group of guys. I really like (offensive coordinator Alex) Golesh. He recruits me the hardest. I love that he’s the OC as well as the tight ends coach.”

-Callahan

 

[VOLUNTEERSZN]

Just realized he plays at Jimmy Holidays HS

 

[vol4092]

Coveted TE Blake Gunter Talks Recruitment, Vols and Golesh

 

[jwilliams]

nice! go get him

 

[Maxwell865]

“I think that Coach Golesh, as well as the other coaches, they have such a high football IQ. I think they’re really smart guys,” said Gunter, who’s ranked the No. 567 overall prospect and No. 30 tight end in the 2022 class, according to the industry-generated 247Sports Composite.

“And, also, one thing that I think about them — and especially I got to see a ton more of (Saturday) — is that they’re really genuine people, and that’s one of the biggest things for me. I know that there’s a lot of coaching staffs nowadays that are kind of more about winning and not so much about the players, and I can tell that this staff is really about the players.”

Gunter said one example of that came at the end of Saturday’s practice.

“It was funny. They actually brought out an ice-cream truck, I think, after practice,” he said. “Coach Heupel was explaining to us, ‘That’s the thing about us, is we’re going to have fun because you can work hard and try to win games. But, at the end of the day, you’ve got to have fun doing it. You’ve got to have fun practicing. You’ve got to enjoy it.’

“So I definitely agree with him. That’s huge. You don’t want to go to practice miserable every day and just dread it. You’ve got to have fun. You’ve got to enjoy it, so that was really cool to see.”

“I would say probably Ole Miss, Florida State and Tennessee are probably three of my top choices right now,” he said.

But he also has a connection to Tennessee. One of his former Madison Central teammates, Jimmy Holiday, is a sophomore wide receiver for the Vols.

“I have talked to him a little bit,” Gunter said of Holiday. “Whenever I have a question, I’ll ask him, or he tells me about Knoxville and the coaching staff. He says he likes the new coaching staff. I got to see him (Saturday). While on the Zoom call, I saw him in action, so that was really cool. But we were teammates back in the day. If you turn on my sophomore year film, that’s who’s throwing me all the balls, is Jimmy.”

Holiday has told Gunter plenty of good things about Tennessee and has made it clear he’d love for Gunter to join him in Knoxville.

“He definitely would think it’d be cool,” Gunter said. “We kind of text every now and then. He kind of jokes around about it, as you can imagine. He thinks it’d be cool to have a high school teammate up there, because of (being from) kind of farther away. Not many people from here do that, so it’d be unique.”

Gunter said Holiday’s feedback over the past several weeks only has improved his opinion of Golesh.

“(Holiday) said he really likes him, and he thinks he’s one of the smartest coaches he ever played for, so he’s one of those guys that can just scheme defenses up,” Gunter said of Golesh. “He’s a football genius, so his football IQ is definitely something that stands out.”

-Callahan