While making the decision to leave Sun Belt Conference power Appalachian State after the 2018 season, Jay Person flirted with opportunities to transfer to North Carolina State or Wake Forest.
Joining either one of those programs would have not only kept Person in the same state and the Football Bowl Subdivision, it would have made him part of an Atlantic Coast Conference team, pushing him into the Power Five ranks.
Family and relationships brought the former Bradley Central High School standout to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2019, though, while also giving him a chance to star on the Mocs’ football team. Person had prior relationships with UTC head coach Rusty Wright — who had tried to recruit him to Georgia State when he was coaching there — and David Bibee (the Mocs’ defensive back coach at the time), which pushed UTC over the top in his decision.
It also helped after the fact that Romeo Wykle, Person’s stepbrother, transferred from Lafayette College to UTC a year later and is now a junior safety on the team, and that Person’s younger sister Mariyah — who prepped at Cleveland — is currently playing basketball at Chattanooga State, where she’s coming off a freshman season in which she averaged 10.8 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists.
So yeah, Person is comfortable with the decision he made — and those who helped get him here are equally pleased.