Texas A&M in the top seven for four-star LB Derion Gullette

2023 Marlin (Tex.) High four-star EDGE/linebacker Derion Gullette is down to seven schools: Alabama, Ohio State, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, Miami and Texas A&M.

In addition, sources say the four-star has a return visit set to College Station the last weekend of July, which is shaping up to be a massive weekend for Texas A&M recruiting. Denton (Tex.) Ryan five-star linebacker Anthony Hill is already expected to be in town that weekend, and now Gullette, the top two linebacker targets for the staff this cycle, will join him.

Gullette’s return visit will be his tenth visit to College Station since July 2021. The four-star has bonded well with linebackers coach Tyler Santucci. Relationships are key for Gullette, and few coaches have a stronger relationship with him than linebackers coach Tyler Santucci. 

“I have a great relationship with Coach Santucci,” he previously told Aggie Scoop. “We can talk about anything. I talk to him like every other day. He’ll just hit me up, asking like ‘How’s your day going?’, ‘How was school?’ ‘How was the track meet?’ Stuff like that. So I have a great relationship with Santucci.” 

In addition to his relationship with Santucci, the four-star maintains communication with Jimbo Fisher, graduate assistant Tony Jerrod-Eddie and is building a relationship with new defensive coordinator D.J Durkin. The four-star had the opportunity to see Durkin’s defense in action at the Maroon & White Game and was pleased with what he saw.

“He has a great defense I’ve seen that just based off the spring game,” he said. “Their defense was up-tempo, they were moving. And then like even though it was a spring game, they made little mistakes, like few mistakes and that’s like, that was amazing to me.” 

Durkin and Santucci have pitched Gullette on playing the ‘Buck’ role in the Aggies’ defense, a versatile position that would allow the four-star to rush the passer, play in coverage and line up all over the front seven. 

After his most recent visit, Gullette stated that despite visiting College Station nine times to date, he still wants to see more. He noted he wants to be around the players more, sit in on position meetings and get as acclimated with the campus and program as possible.

Outside of Texas A&M, Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio State and Texas are among schools heavily involved. Gullette has official visits set to Ohio State (6/3), Oklahoma (6/10) and Texas (6/24). His return visit to Texas A&M is likely going to be an unofficial visit, but the four-star will likely make an official visit down to College Station at some point this summer, or save the visit for the fall.

The four-star made his first visit up to Tuscaloosa last month and the Crimson Tide cannot be counted out of his recruitment. Gullette originally hails from the state of Alabama and the opportunity to return to his home state is a factor. The opportunity to be developed by Nick Saban and defensive coordinator Pete Golding naturally stands out as well.

As things stand, the Aggies are best positioned in Gullette’s recruitment, with a 39.1% chance to land the four-star’s commitment per the On3 Recruiting Prediction Machine. Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio State trail the Aggies per the RPM, with the Longhorns trailing with a 26.7% chance at Gullette’s commitment.

Gullette ranks as the No. 173 prospect and No. 22 EDGE prospect in the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He ranks even higher in the On300 as the No. 54 prospect and No. 8 EDGE in the country. The four-star has an On3 NIL Valuation of $14.9K. The On3 NIL Valuation is an index that looks to set the standard market value for both high school and college-level athletes. 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.