Latest on 4-star Arion Carter after Tennessee official visit

Smyrna (Tenn.) four-star linebacker Arion Carter went on his official visit this weekend to Tennessee.

Alabama has a big lead in Carter’s recruitment, according to the On3 Recruiting Prediction Machine, but On3 Director of Recruiting Chad Simmons said the Volunteers made up major ground on The Inside Scoop.

“Hearing some good news for Tennessee,” Simmons said. “Heading into the weekend, Alabama was the clear favorite. I had one source even tell me 75/25, pretty strong Alabama’s way that’s very close to Arion Carter. But I think this weekend made this race quite a bit more interesting here late. Now, Alabama gets the final visit. Alabama’s with him today, doing an in home visit so they want to try and cut into that momentum Tennessee grabbed over the weekend.”

“Carter was there with his family,” Simmons said. “Fellow Tennessee commit Caleb Herring, a good friend of Carter’s who played 7-on-7 with him, spent the weekend there. Herring brought his family to hang out with Carter’s family to make it that much more personable, more of that family feel.”

The On3 Consensus — a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies — has Carter as the No. 267 overall recruit in the 2023 cycle. Carter is ranked higher in the 2023 On300 ranking at No. 181 overall and as the No. 2 recruit from the state of Tennessee.

Landing a highly-regarded in-state recruit is always a big deal and head coach Josh Heupel has made himself an important player in this recruitment.

“I’ll give a lot of credit here to Josh Heupel as well.” Simmons said. “He took over as the lead recruiter here and he’s not an offensive guy like a Nico (Iamaleava). He’s a defensive linebacker, in-state target. I think that’s what’s brought Tennessee back in this race is Carter’s connection with Heupel. They talk about a lot of things outside of football. They can stay on the phone for hours, I’m told, hold those meaningful conversations. From what I’m told this weekend could not have gone better for both Carter and Tennessee. Now Alabama gets the last shot. Let’s see what happens this coming weekend but this race got much, much tighter.”

Carter currently has an On3 NIL Valuation of $13.7k. The On3 NIL Valuation is the industry’s leading index that sets high school and college athletes’ projected annual value (PAV). The NIL valuation does not act as a tracker of the value of NIL deals an athlete has completed to date. It rather signifies an athlete’s value at a certain moment in time.