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Georgia Tech Football Recruiting: Jackets have ground to make up on Tomari Fox

By Dylan Callaghan-Croley

ATLANTA, GA - NOVEMBER 1: The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets car Ramblin' Wreck prepares to drive out of the tunnel prior to their game against the Virginia Cavaliers on November 1, 2014 at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets defeated the Virginia Cavaliers 35-10. (Photo by Michael Chang/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - NOVEMBER 1: The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets car Ramblin' Wreck prepares to drive out of the tunnel prior to their game against the Virginia Cavaliers on November 1, 2014 at Bobby Dodd Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets defeated the Virginia Cavaliers 35-10. (Photo by Michael Chang/Getty Images) /
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The Georgia Tech football coaching staff appears to have plenty ground of ahead to make up if they hope to land three-star defensive lineman Tomari Fox.

Three-star defensive end Tomari Fox at Suwanee, Georgia is one of Georgia Tech’s top defensive line targets in the 2019 recruiting class. The three-star recruit ranked as the 65th best defensive end in the country has his fair share of options with 11 scholarship offers currently with most of them coming from Power 5 programs.

The Yellow Jackets are believed to be in a good position with Fox but they certainty have their competition in his recruitment and have plenty of ground to make up in his recruitment. On Tuesday, Rival’s Kelly Quinlan, the recruiting services lead Georgia Tech writer published a piece on a recent interview he had with the Suwanee native. Unfortunately, the article is behind a payroll but a little research lead us to an article from last month from Hawkeyenation.com.

The piece by Hawkeyenation.com states that Fox who took his first official visit to Iowa late last month almost committed to the Hawkeyes but decided to hold off as he wanted to see his other options on official visits. While it’s good news that Fox still left his recruitment open for the time being, the Yellow Jackets coaching staff and the remainder of Fox’s top schools probably won’t get much solace from him ultimately not committing.

While Iowa will present one quality recruiting chance for the Yellow Jackets in hopes of landing Fox, the North Carolina Tar Heels recently offered Fox and appear to be a team on the rise in his recruitment though where they exactly rank in his recruitment is hard to say at this time. The Tar Heels do have one thing going for them, that is the fact that Fox’s older brother Tomon Fox is currently enrolled and a member of the UNC football program.

Other programs that could make noise going forward in Fox’s recruitment could be Maryland and Iowa State however we would place both programs behind the Yellow Jackets in Fox’s recruitment.

Overall, we would say that the Yellow Jackets are currently battling it out with UNC for the #2 spot in Fox’s recruitment given what we know so far. Iowa is by far and away right now, the team to beat for Fox but holding off a commitment is good news for the Yellow Jackets. The coaching staff last had Fox on a visit in the middle of last month and by all indications will be a recipient of one of Fox’s four remaining official visits.

If the title of Quinlan’s article is any hint, we should expect Fox to be taking visits in the upcoming weeks and months once the recruiting dead period ends on July 24th. With the dead period, coaching staff’s can not have any in-person contact with recruits even if the recruit visits their respective campus. Fox’s official visit to Iowa came just before the beginning of the dead period on June 25th, which means that the three-star has had plenty of time to think about his options which could be good news for Georgia Tech.

With the dead period coming to a close in the upcoming weeks, we should be hearing more on where Fox plans to visit and when. The Yellow Jackets’ have done well with official visits in recent memory including hitting a home run with quarterback James Graham last December. They may need another home run in order to entice Fox to play his college football on The Flats. If the Jackets get their way, they would end up as Fox’s last official visit, allowing them to be the last school that rolls the red carpet out for him and a better chance to leave the biggest impression. While they will still have a chance to land Fox even without being his final official visit, it may be a harder hill to climb in order to land him. Either way, the hill is already a steep climb for Georgia Tech and they must begin gaining ground on Iowa and potentially North Carolina.

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Fox has the chance to be a high impact player on the next level despite not having great measurables. In fact, what the Collins Hill defensive end doesn’t have in measurables, he makes up for in his skillset that allows him to get past blockers and into opposing backfields. If the Yellow Jackets can land him, he’s a player who could see quality playing time as a freshman for the program. That being said, it’s too early to tell right now how strong the Jackets’ chances are at landing Fox.