Four-star wide receiver Jacob Copeland committed to Florida on National Signing Day. He picked the Gators over offers from Alabama and Tennessee.
4-star WR Jacob Copeland’s mom, in Alabama and Tennessee gear, walks out of commitment ceremony as he picks Florida
Copeland said he had to make his own decision.
Awkwardly, Copeland’s mom left the ceremony as soon as he committed. She’d been wearing an Alabama hoodie and apparently really wanted him to pick the Tide or Tennessee, whose hat she was wearing.
“I can’t go with my mom,” Copeland told ESPN. “I gotta go with my heart.”
Copeland’s mom returned later and embraced her son:
Copeland appeared to be agonized during his recruitment:
But by the end of the day, laughed off the moment on Twitter.
Copeland isn’t the first recruit in recent years to defy his mother during a commitment ceremony. Former Alabama safety Landon Collins did it a few years ago:
Copeland’s a really good player.
Copeland, the Pensacola, Fla., blue-chipper, currently ranks as one of 2018’s top 10 receiver recruits and the No. 14 overall recruit in the state, per the 247Sports Composite. He said at the New Orleans regional camp of Nike’s The Opening tour early this year that Clemson co-OC Jeff Scott has referred to him as a Sammy Watkins-type.
Clemson, Florida, and Auburn were his biggest standout colleges earlier in the cycle, with Alabama emerging down the stretch as a threat.
He was, for a time, committed to Florida before the Gators’ coaching change forced him to go a different way. Tennessee came in as a late suitor and once Jeremy Pruitt got hired, secured a visit in mid-December.
Tennessee got a bump on Copeland the second Jeremy Pruitt arrived. Some of the staff has already paid Copeland an in-home visit.
Standing 6’0, 192 with a Spider-Man tat, he expects to reach about 205 in a college strength program. He cites academics and playing time as his biggest factors.
In order to focus on his grades. Copeland changed high schools amid a coaching change for his senior year.
