Edwardsville’s Epenesa picks up an offer from Alabama
While he already had more than 20 football scholarship offers from most of the top programs in the country, Edwardsville High junior defensive end A.J. Epenesa picked up a new one Monday that carried a lot of weight in his eyes.
It came from the University of Alabama.
“I really enjoyed talking to the coach and it was really good to finally hear something from them,” Epenesa said Tuesday after exploding for 25 points and 16 rebounds in Edwardsville’s 63-51 basketball win over Belleville East. “I’ve heard some stuff on Twitter from them. It was a big surprise, I didn’t think they were even interested and then they show up at school one day and they offered me.”
Epenesa has 25 points and 16 rebounds in Edwardsville basketball win Tuesday
Again, Epenesa is used to dealing with big-time schools and coaches. He’s 6-foot-5 and 260 pounds and is ranked by Rivals.com, 247sports.com and Scout.com as the No. 1 defensive end recruit in the nation in the Class of 2017.
Epenesa is ranked the 12th best overall recruit in the country for 2017 regardless of position by 247sports.com, 16th by Scout.com and 23rd by Rivals.com. He is rated as the top recruit in Illinois by all three and the top recruit in the Midwest by Scout.com.
I really enjoyed talking to the coach and it was really good to finally hear something from them. It was a big surprise, I didn’t think they were even interested and then they show up at school one day and they offered me.
A.J. Epenesa on the Alabama offer
“It was a good surprise and I was happy to have it,” Epenesa said of the Alabama offer. “Of course I’ll have them in the running until the end, they’re a good football program and they’re a good school. They’re going to have a lot of success so we’ll just try to keep them in there as long as we can.”
It’s been a big recruiting week for Epenesa, the son of former University of Iowa player Eppy Epenesa. The younger Epenesa also got a visit from new Missouri coach Barry Odom on Monday, with Illinois and Notre Dame also in town recently. A coach from Iowa was in the stands at Belleville East on Tuesday.
Odom was hired recently to replace retiring Mizzou coach Gary Pinkel.
“He’s real nice, I like him,” Epenesa said of Odom, who was promoted to head coach after serving as Pinkel’s defensive coordinator “I’ve met him before. Mizzou has always had a pretty solid defense. They did struggle this year, but they had some problems on the team and outside and with Coach Pinkel (resigning). I feel like they played well, they’re in a tough conference and they play tough teams.”
Epenesa’s offers have come from the obvious local schools (Illinois and Missouri) and from some of the nation’s top programs. The list includes Alabama, Ohio State, Florida State, Iowa, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Michigan, Michigan State, USC, UCLA, Ole Miss, Oregon, Tennessee and Wisconsin.
Epenesa had 34 tackles, three sacks and three fumble recoveries for the Tigers in football, routinely facing double-teams or teams trying to run in the other direction.
He’s averaging 14.8 points and 10.2 rebounds in basketball.
Norm Sanders: 618-239-2454, @NormSanders
This story was originally published December 9, 2015 at 2:05 PM with the headline "Edwardsville’s Epenesa picks up an offer from Alabama."