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Kareem Orr committed last summer to play college football for Louisville, which gave him one of his earliest scholarship offers.
The Notre Dame standout thought he was done and had put the recruiting process behind him.
It wasn’t that easy. Orr, with 26 schools having offered him a scholarship, began to have doubts. He wanted to be sure, and said as much to Louisville coaches.
So he waded into the list of 26 — including Georgia and Mississippi State — before finally paring the list last week to Ohio State, where he began the recruiting process two years ago at a summer combine, and Arizona State.
Monday afternoon he made it official that Arizona State is where he’ll spend at least the next year three years to play college football.
“I think I have an opportunity to go in and play right away,” the 6-foot, 190-pound receiver and defensive back said. “I have nothing bad to say about Ohio State. They just won a national championship. It really came down to people — to the coaches and the players I was around during my visit to Arizona State.”
He was so certain after that mid-January visit that he canceled trips to Athens, Ga., and Starkville, Miss.
“I didn’t think it was going to be what it turned out to be,” he said of the visit to Tempe. “I had a great time with the coaches and the people I’m going to be with the next three or four years. The guys showed me what it is to be a Sun Devil. I have a good chance of starting (as a freshman defensive back). They like my footwork. If I go in and work hard, I have a very good chance.”
Orr plans to enroll at Arizona State in late May, thus arriving in time for two summer-school sessions and a lot of video work, weight training and conditioning, and the last of those could be most important because he could get some playing time also at receiver.
His skills and physical ability as a cornerback are what caused the recruiting groundswell as the 2014 season progressed.
“Kareem said he had 26 offers. Well, there were probably more than 50 schools that came through here to meet with him,” Notre Dame coach Charles Fant said. “As a matter of fact, I got a call from North Carolina this morning asking if Kareem had made up his mind and that they’d like the chance to talk with him if things didn’t work out.”
Tennessee was one of those that came in late after telling Orr early on, according to the player, that he was probably too short.
“They tried to come in a month ago but they never offered (a scholarship), and I didn’t have anything to do with them,” Orr said.
“They never offered, but they never really got the opportunity,” Fant said. “It’s all about numbers and needs. Coach (Butch) Jones has done an incredible job up there they last two years, and they may not have had a need (for defensive backs). In this game I’m never surprised.”
Tennessee may have wanted to honor Orr’s original commitment to Louisville, which initially was a solid pledge.
“I know that verbal commitments are just that. I’ve seen players cancel and I’ve seen schools cancel, but I told Kareem when he decided to commit to Louisville that he didn’t need to be pursuing other schools,” Fant said. “He agreed and he didn’t. But then he started getting queries on his Twitter account and I was getting phone calls.
“He didn’t pursue them. They pursued him, and after he made a visit to Oklahoma State (early January) he felt he needed to open it back up.”
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him at Twitter.com/wardgossett.