Tennessee’s class of football commitments for the 2027 signing cycle has been heavy on in-state prospects and those from neighboring states.
Friday provided quite the exception.
Niko Kampas, a 6-foot-8, 294-pound offensive tackle who was born and raised in Kaarst, Germany, is the 17th nonbinding commitment for the Volunteers. He is a four-star recruit, according to the 247Sports.com composite rankings, which lists him as the No. 33 tackle and the No. 325 overall prospect.
The Vols now have a trio of four-star commitments for offensive line coach Glen Elarbee, with Kampas joining Princeton Uwaifo of Murfreesboro and Q’Mari Hudson of Chesapeake, Virginia.
Kampas is attending the NFL Academy in Loughborough, England, and he selected Tennessee over Auburn, Michigan and Vanderbilt. He took trips to Auburn and Michigan in May before visiting Tennessee and Vanderbilt last month.
“At the end, it pretty much came down to Vanderbilt and Tennessee,” Kampas told 247Sports.com. “Obviously, the academics at Vanderbilt were awesome. If you ask my father, he wanted me to go to Vanderbilt, but we both agreed at the end that I’m going over to America — it’s a big step and everything — for football, right? The academics I take with me are a huge upside, but they are not the main reason, obviously.
“I wanted to be at a place kind of where football matters, and you get all the academic support you can get and all the football support you can get. With all of the schools, I asked them, ‘How are you going to develop me? What’s your plan?’ Coach Elarbee and Tennessee just had the most precise plan with a time schedule throughout the year, which I really liked.”
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A big connection Kampas had with Tennessee was current Vols freshman tight end Luca Wolf, who is from Austria and was his roommate at the NFL Academy.
Tennessee’s commitments were ranked 29th by 247Sports as of Friday afternoon.
Vols and Spartans
Tennessee and Michigan State have agreed to a home-and-home series in men’s basketball, with the Spartans coming to Knoxville on Nov. 17 of this year.
The date of the matchup in East Lansing during the 2027-28 season has not been set.
Michigan State has won five of the seven meetings with Tennessee, including a 70-69 triumph in St. Louis during the Elite Eight round of the 2010 NCAA tournament. The teams played an exhibition in East Lansing on Oct. 29, 2023, when Dalton Knecht scored 28 points to lead the Vols to an 89-88 victory.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.