FRA's Omarii Sanders won't have long to celebrate the Panthers' Week 6 win over BGA, with a visit to Texas A&M football planned the following day.
Omarii Sanders stood in the back of the FRA huddle with a grin as coach Justin Geisinger lauded the Panthers for their comeback victory against last season's DII-AA state runner-up BGA (4-1, 1-1) in Week 6 of the TSSAA football season.
The Panthers (5-0, 3-0) trailed 14-0 at halftime and scored 21 unanswered second-half points, capped by Kwadir Fletcher running in from 19 yards to take the lead with just 17 seconds remaining.
As his teammates bounced up and down in celebration, Sanders' reaction was far more reserved following his five-catch, 45-yard outing that also included an interception on defense. Perhaps some of it has to do with the long day Sanders has ahead of him.
He'll only have a few hours of rest following the win, before he's up and headed for the airport by 3:30 a.m. to reach College Station, Texas, in time for Texas A&M's SEC matchup against Auburn on Sept. 27.
"This is kind of my first gameday visit at Texas A&M, so I'm really just seeing what they have to offer. How the fans are, how the crowd is, how hard the defense plays," Sanders said. "I watched their practice and saw how intense the practice was, but now you get to see what a whole summer's work (did). I'm just ready to see it on the field."
Texas A&M is one of the final five schools Sanders is considering, alongside Tennessee, Georgia, Vanderbilt and Miami. Sanders is the state's No. 4-ranked recruit in the Class of 2027 and the No. 57-ranked recruit nationally in the 247Sports Composite.
When he takes the field on Sept. 27, he won't be the only notable Nashville area recruit on the Aggies' sideline. There'll be a familiar face joining him in Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed, a former standout at MBA whose father coached alongside Sanders' at Tennessee State.
"We actually kind of grew up together ... me, my siblings and Marcel, we were always kind of in the booth. I mean being kids and playing hide and seek, doing all this other stuff," Sanders said. "We haven't really talked that much now because he's obviously a SEC quarterback, one of the top ones, so he's been pretty busy. But yeah, we definitely have that connection being from Nashville."
Sanders previously visited Tennessee on Sept. 13 as the Volunteers hosted another one of his final choices, Georgia. He'll continue adding frequent flyer mileage over the next month with a visit to Miami planned on Oct. 17, before heading to Vanderbilt the following week.
Sanders isn't setting a timeline on his decision, but he knows what he's looking for. Sanders wants to play his preferred position of safety, something all five remaining schools have recruited him for, while his relationships with coaches will ultimately decide his home for the next four years.
"It's really getting to a game one more time, seeing what the atmosphere is like," said Sanders' father Ed, FRA's defensive coordinator. "Listen to what the coaches are saying, kind of get a feel for it. Try to narrow some stuff down and at some point we have to have a conversation about, what's the decision gonna be?"
Harrison Campbell covers high school sports for The Daily Herald and The Tennessean. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @hccamp.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: FRA's Omarii Sanders planning quick turnaround for Texas A&M visit
Category: General Sports
