Andrew Raym tweeted yesterday that he plans to release his top 5 soon. That will not be a surprise to anyone who encountered him at the Under Armour “Future 50” event earlier this month.
The 6-foot-5 standout from Broken Arrow High School (Broken Arrow, Okla.) spoke with a pretty heightened understanding of his recruiting process.
Especially for a prospect smack dab in the middle of his junior year. He has dialed a few things in: Look for him to choose a good engineering program. Distance from home will not be a factor.
He speaks with the coaches at Georgia, LSU, Michigan and Oklahoma with the most regularity. He does plan to enroll early. The 295-pounder will either make his college choice known on the first day of the 2019 early signing period or at 2020 Under Armour All-American Game.
What will eventually make up his mind?
“It will basically be once I take my officials and take more trips,” he said. “It will be what feels like home.”
Not many elite prospects will sound as prepared as he did that day outlining his next steps. Raym was even able to basically rattle off four of his five expected official visits.
Raym, who rates as the nation’s No. 3 guard for 2020 on the 247Sports Composite, is already building a good relationship with Sam Pittman.
“Building” might not cover it with a coach he can already talk to for an hour at a time.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Georgia is going to get an official. My officials are going to be OU [Oklahoma], Georgia, Michigan, Notre Dame and then I don’t know about the fifth one.”
Spring officials will not be the move for him.
“I want to do gamedays,” he said.
The former Oklahoma commitment plays a lot of tackle on his high school film, but the industry projects him to be a guard on Saturdays. That opinion, however, will vary.
Raym sounds set on giving the Bulldogs an official even though he has yet to step foot on the campus.
Why? Well, maybe because that Pittman fella is quite a recruiter. Have you read that anywhere of late? He’s been on a hot streak with elite linemen for maybe the last 1,105 days or so.
The UGA o-line coach gives a good look around the state of Oklahoma every cycle. I’d image he can’t help it. He even signed a prospect from his native state (Oklahoma) in the 2018 class.
The things to know about Andrew Raym
Raym, in a nutshell, treats his recruiting process as if it were a good book. He picks it up and then puts it down when necessary.
“I have a lot of schools that talk to me on the daily, but it gets so hectic that sometimes I don’t even answer them,” he said. “I will go days before I open my messages and then I will just answer them all.”
Coaches will cringe at that. Readers may cackle. Such is the life of a recruiter.
Raym visited LSU this past season for the Mississippi State game. He said the campus and the people were all great.
The book on Georgia? That one is proving hard to put down. Especially with Pittman as its author.
How does Raym describe Pittman?
“He is,” before trailing off for a four-second pause. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
But he tried.
“I guess he is just a coach,” Raym said. “They all kind of say the same things.”
Does he have a “connection” to Pittman? Raym didn’t say that. At least initially.
“Mostly casual,” Raym said while describing their chats. “We always talk for a long while and we don’t talk about football when we talk. We’ll go on for hours or more just talking about life and the people in our lives and just football. Not really playing for him.”
Connection? No. Not yet. But the young man did say he can talk to Pittman for hours. Their mutual Oklahoma connection will come up.
“We do talk about that quite often,” Raym said. “We have a lot of similarities because we both grew up in really small towns.”
That’s interesting, but it makes sense to balance things out here. Even if it does sounds like DawgNation readers have seen this movie before with Pittman and out-of-state OL targets from Alabama, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Tennessee.
Raym is from Oklahoma. He was once committed to the Sooners. That elite program also stays in constant contact. The 247 Sports “Crystal Ball” feature will read that 60 percent of the predictions point him to Norman.
“In their minds, they think that I’m going there 100 percent,” Raym said when discussing the Sooners. “With coach [Lincoln] Riley and coach ‘B’ [offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh] they were the first people to ever recruit me. I’ve known them for so long. For over three years now. It is just like they are almost kind of like family honestly.”
Will it be Oklahoma? Or somewhere else? Raym was asked a bold question about that in the manner that a bookie would appreciate.
Is the best bet here that he will choose Oklahoma? Or the field? He was coy in his reply.
“I don’t know,” Raym said.
The plot twist with UGA and Andrew Raym
Raym said Pittman doesn’t see him as a guard. It sounds like he is viewed by the staff as another hybrid prospect in the Cade Mays mold.
But the Georgia assistant brings up Isaiah Wynn as the player parallel here.
“He sees me as a tackle and he talks quite often about the tackle he sent first round [of the NFL Draft] who was 6-foot-2,” Raym said. “He tells me he doesn’t think height is all that. He tells me he thinks my athleticism is what he wants for a tackle.”
The big Oklahoman compared his interest in Georgia to how he views Michigan.
Why is Georgia a factor here? He brought up the program’s image and the fact that Pittman is also from Oklahoma.
“I want to play for someone who is obviously prestigious,” Raym said. “Like you said because coach Pittman and I have quite a bit of similarity and when we talk, we talk for a long time. I feel a little bit of a connection with him and I am just keeping him in mind.”
Does he have a “connection” like that with other recruiters?
“Like the one with coach Pittman?” he said in reply. “I’d say only three. Those would be coach ‘B’ [at Oklahoma] and coach Pittman and [Michigan tight ends] coach [Spencer] Moore.