Top Miami target Jalen Brown dishes on NIL, possible timeline as recruitment heats up
Jalen Brown is the most sought after recruit in Miami-Dade County, which means a couple different things right now.
With the summer fast approaching, the five-star wide receiver has no shortage of suitors and, for the moment, no clear-cut list of top schools. He also has the luxury of not worrying too much about where he’ll be able to capitalize on his name, image and likeness.
“Me and my family already know I’m a top recruit, so pretty much if I still come in, play hard — the NIL deals are going to come. ... I’m going to get it,” the 6-foot-1, 170-pound junior said. “I’m not really stressing it, but it’s a big factor.
“As of right now, the question hasn’t really been in the conversation.”
Still, he knows those conversations will probably start to ramp up in the next few months. With less than eight months left until he can sign a national letter of intent in December, Brown is letting his recruitment grow, rather than shrink.
Yes, he has the long-time fixtures still heavily involved — the Miami Hurricanes, Florida State Seminoles, Texas A&M Aggies and Michigan Wolverines have long been recruiting him — but he said he’s “branching out” before he starts to narrow things down.
In the last few months, Brown said he has started to hear from the Georgia Bulldogs, LSU Tigers, Tennessee Volunteers, Oklahoma Sooners, Texas Longhorns and Oregon Ducks, and he’d like to visit as many of them as possible in June.
The current plan, Brown said, is to take all of his official visits in the spring and summer, and hopefully be all but done with his recruitment before his senior year at Gulliver Prep in Pinecrest.
“Something like that,” Brown said.
He likes those summer visits because he doesn’t want to be too swayed by the game-day atmosphere. He said he already has visits planned for LSU and Tennesse next month.
“Most of the time, that’s how the school’s going to be,” Brown said. “You’re not going to have game day every day at the school. The season’s going to end and you’ve got to like where you live at, so basically go up there when it’s calm and collected, see how it is.”
Currently, Miami is the frontrunner in Brown’s recruitment, according to multiple predictions in the 247Sports.com Crystal Ball, including one from March.
It’s the hometown team for Brown — Gulliver is about 10 minutes from Coral Gables — and he has already visited the Hurricanes at least three times during the spring. He said he talks to offensive coordinator Josh Gattis “weekly” — Gattis was Brown’s primary recruiter when he was at Michigan, too — and also has a good relationship with coach Mario Cristobal and Nate Crutchfield, who works with the quarterbacks in an off-field role.
“All of us — we talk, we laugh, we giggle,” he said. “It’s just a relationship beyond football.”
For now, Brown is locked in on track and field. He’s headed to the Class 2A championship Thursday in Gainesville and has a chance to win a gold medal in the 200-meter dash.
It’s part of why he’s such an appealing prospect. Brown is the No. 4 wide receiver in the Class of 2023, according to the 247Sports composite rankings, and earned first-team all-county honors from the Miami Herald last year by catching 56 passes for 1,033 yards and 11 touchdowns.
“I’m getting strong, getting faster, which helps me in my college recruitment. Coaches want fast receivers.”
