KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Elijah Simmons is set to join the Vols this summer as a freshman defensive lineman. He's listed at 350 pounds on his 247Sports recruiting profile and he can dunk.
Simmons showed off his athleticism in a video on Twitter, slamming a one-handed dunk and then hitting an almost full-court shot.
Last week Simmons, a senior at Nashville's Pearl Cohn High School, posted a podcast on Twitter for a class project and asked people to comment on it so he could earn an exemption for his economics final exam. He received more than 100 comments on the post and was exempted from his exam. He posted the dunk video as a thank you to his followers.
Simmons drew some attention at the NFL Draft in Nashville in April. He stood behind commissioner Roger Goodell, along with other Nashville-area high school football players, for one of the draft pick announcements and was seen on national TV. All-Pro lineman J.J. Watt tweeted about Simmons.
"Can we draft #72 from the Tennessee metro high school team? Kid looks like a beast," Watt tweeted.
Simmons is rated a three-star on 247Sports and will enroll at Tennessee this summer, helping to bolster a defensive line that lost three senior starters from last season.