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"He is the talk of college football": Why college coaches nationwide rush to see Wyatt Simmons
Coaches are flocking to Searcy, Arkansas, to see Wyatt SimmonsToo many individual elements alone tell the impossible story.
No camps.
No social media.
Not much thought about programs that might even be interested until earlier this month, for a prospect in the upcoming class.
The recruiting supernova, arguably unseen in this CENTURY; the kind of kid that decades ago would have sent Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant, Gen. Robert R. Neyland and others of their hall of fame ilk scrambling for train tickets.
OK, today’s college football assistant coaches get plane tickets. Some of the really lucky ones get “PJs” – private jets.
All types are inputting the navigational coordinates to Searcy, Arkansas, to find the 2024 prospect who’s tallied more offers in two weeks than any wunderkind of recent memory.
Of course, Wyatt Simmons never had Tweeted before May 9. Didn’t know precisely what he was doing when he unwittingly published the highlights of his junior campaign at Harding Academy (Arkansas).
That’s the season during which Simmons, his first year as a linebacker, mind you, amassed 15 of his 84 tackles behind the line of scrimmage, six times sacked quarterbacks, twice scored defensive touchdowns, twice forced fumbles and, of course, added an interception for composite stat-stuffing.
So who is Wyatt Simmons? He’s the 6-foot-3-inch, 214-pound linebacker who initially put neither his name nor his contact information on his highlight reel earlier this month but now has encroached upon 20 – TWENTY! – Football Bowls Subdivision scholarship offers.
He had none, by the way, before the accidental video reel.
“This wasn’t his world at all,” said Simmons’s prep coach and a regular state championship mass producer at Harding Academy, Neil Evans. “But it’s kind of a crazy deal. We put together highlights, and we didn’t really know what he was doing. He picked his tape out, and we kinda showed him how to edit two Fridays ago. We said go home and look it over and let’s get together Monday.
“He published it over the weekend, probably doesn’t even know he published it. Just sent it out labeled football. No name. no contact info. Super unassuming. So there’s like a time-capsule element to this whole thing. He’s like recruiting somebody in the 1960s.”
For those counting, and more importantly, recruiting, consider:
SMU led the way, and ignited this nationwide recruiting firestorm in many ways. Since then, Auburn, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Florida State, OKlahoma and Illinois all followed in various pecking orders.
Clemson has dispatched staff to see Simmons, and Stanford has made clear its interest; there’s talk Notre Dame could join the fray. Southern Miss, Liberty, Tulsa, UTSA, UNLV all have told Simmons they’d welcome him into their 2024 classes.
Oh, Simmons had an offer from the local school, Harding University, where he has a pretty strong relationship with the head coach – his father, Paul Simmons. All the elder Simmons has done in scant few years at the helm of the NCAA Division II program is turn it into a national power; NCAA D2 Playoff berths are now the norm.
The hype-trains for similarly rising prospects in recent years have chugged to a slow, almost always camp-fueled, social media-bounced, crescendo. Not Simmons.
And, so, a prominent coach whose program has suddenly made Simmons a priority offered this assessment.
“He’s top-five on our board,” the coach told FootballScoop. “Not top-five at the position. Top-five in the nation in that class for us.”
The film, measurables and football IQ are keeping coaches coming back. Evans gives little in the way of hyperbole, but stands on this assessment:
“There’s so much upside,” Evans said. “Last year was the first year he played linebacker; freshman year he was a defensive end, sophomore year wide receiver and we were gonna play him back at end, but our starting Mike gets hurt Week 3, of preseason camp.”
Simmons stepped in to finish practice with inside drill. The rest? Well, that’s the type of story that no camp, no Tweet, no post can encapsulate.
“He’s not captain stoic, he smiles and is talkative and stuff, but there’s times he’s just sitting in the chair stone-faced staring at these coaches talking to him,” Evans said of the sudden recruiting surge. “He’s really secure, very direct, he just knows who is and all of this is not changing him, which I think makes it appealing to other coaches.
“It will just be about ball, relationships, development for him. Not necessarily in that order. He’s very rooted in faith.”
