Quotes from the father of S Lathan Ransom of Tucson, AZ (OrangeBloods):
“Everything was top notch. They checked every box. Location, coaching staff, top notch football, top notch facilities, what its’ going to be in 2021 when it’s all done – when it comes to boxes, for me as a parent, UT checked every single box. It was a pretty cool visit,” said Nathan Ransom. “We got to talk to coach (Tom) Herman, got to build on that relationship. We spent some time with coach (Craig) Naivar, really got to bound with him."
“We got in late Friday so we spent a lot of time Saturday, Sunday and Monday with (Naivar). That was well-needed. Obviously we had a great relationship with him on the phone, but to get to spend time with him in person, I really enjoyed his company. We talked where he thinks Lathan fits on the team, the vision he has for him. It was good to get a lot of personal time because it was just us and him a lot of the time, so that was big.”
“He (Coach Naivar) talked about how they have a possibility on some schemes where they have six DBs on the field. Regardless of where they have him, he’d have a good chance of being on the field. He can play up in the box, can play free, can play nickel,” Mr. Ransom said. “He just said they have a vision, with one senior graduating at safety, or once guys graduate after his first year or go to NFL, he’d have an opportunity at multiple positions. The free position could be open and they’d have two safeties fighting for that position. After that it opens up to a couple diff positions. He really just sold his vision of being able to play three different other positions, was very honest and open with him.”
“For unofficial visit, it was definitely right up there with the official visits,” Mr. Ransom said. “You can only do so much with unofficial visits. But just spending time with Lathan – he has to see you care and want him in your program. That was the first step, building that relationship with coach Naivar. Over the next couple months, he’ll continue to do that with coach Herman too.”
“We talked to Caden Sterns, spent a lot of time with him. He was awesome,” Mr. Ransom said. “He was just really honest with him. He just said ‘Hey man, come here, make this the real DBU.’ Thought that was really cool. (Lathan) hung out with him and two other safeties, but Caden was the guy who stood out, who he really, really talked to him. He even met up with the quarterback one night and said he was really nice to him and cool. To get those guys playing at that level, for them to take time to talk to a guy who is just thinking about coming, that was really cool.”
“It (training session with Coach McKnight) was intense. Talk about something I’ve never seen before on that level - that was really , really impressive,” Mr. Ransom said. “The strength coach is phenomenal. It was on another level. Everyone was in tune, nobody was off doing their own thing. Everyone was working for the same mission. The quarterback was in there. There wasn’t anyone in there where it was ‘hey that’s that guy’ and he was off on his own or was any different. It was impressive.”
“We went to the lake with the quarterback commitment, Hudson Card, got to spend some time there. It was literally just me, Lathan, Hudson’s dad and Hudson,” Mr. Ransom said. “We really got to spend some time with them and go out there on the lake. That was awesome. That was the highlight of the fun part, going out there on the wakeboard and stuff. That was cool because we got away from it all, saw the city of Austin. That was really cool for him.”
