Tucker names Top 5, narrows focus as junior season looms

Knoxville Catholic offensive lineman Bryn Tucker has been visiting several schools this spring and summer. Why? All in an effort to get closer to finding his future football home.

On Wednesday, he named a top five with LSU, Tennessee, Auburn, Virginia Tech and Notre Dame making the cut.

"Those are the schools that are recruiting me the hardest and the ones I want to focus on," Tucker said. "I plan on committing around my senior year and I want to just focus on those schools and give them the best chance to show me what they have to offer. I feel like I'm close with the coaches at those schools and they have what I'm looking for."

Tucker visited Tennessee for spring practice and then camped on Rocky Top in June. It was a great chance to see the new staff put in work and his latest visit gave him an excellent opportunity to get a feel for what it would be like to play for offensive line coach Will Friend.

"Coach Friend is a tremendous offensive line coach," Tucker said. "It was the first time I got to see him coach coach. I liked him and how he coached. He's a hard worker and he is going to push his players to their capabilities. We we will see how he does with the Volunteers this fall. It was awesome to work with him. I had a lot of fun actually."

Tucker has been impressive every step of the way dating back to his freshman season for the Irish. He's gotten stronger and can now handle the daily reps without being phased.

"It's good to put in that work," Tucker said.

"Going against that type of competition makes you better. It was awesome and the atmosphere was really good. There were some great offensive linemen down there and everyone was around us."

That showed up bigtime during his camp experience at both the Nashville Rivals camp in May and Tennessee's camp a few weeks back. After his work, he got to sit down with his family and get to have meaningful talk with Jeremy Pruitt & Co.

"After the camp I got to sit down with coach (Tyson) Helton and coach Pruitt both one on one with my family," Tucker said.

"Just going over my strength and weaknesses. Coach Pruitt told me that I did great at camp and I took advantage of his words and went straight back and put stuff back into my game."

Tucker plays tackle in high school but that will likely change in college. Recently, schools have been very straight forward with their desire to move Big Tuck inside and play him where his power becomes a force.

"Most of the schools I visit say they like me at guard or center," Tucker said.

“That's where I worked at and performed at. I feel like I can perform at any position, but I feel like I'll be better at guard or center."

Rivals.com ranks Tucker as a 4-star offensive guard in the class of 2020.