Tennessee earned a big-time recruiting win on Signing Day by flipping 4-star edge rusher Carter Gooden from his commitment to UCLA.
Gooden was set to head 3,000 miles west to play his college football in Pasadena, but the star at Tabor Academy in Marion, Mass., decided to scrap those plans and head to SEC country instead. The Volunteers are now set to get a talented prize in Gooden, who is the 147th-ranked player in the Class of 2026, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings.
He’s also the 17th-ranked edge rusher in the class, according to the Composite rankings, and the top-ranked player in the class from the state of Massachusetts.
Gooden announced his flip on Wednesday afternoon with this dramatic unzipping of his jacket to reveal a Tennessee shirt underneath:
There was a battle for Gooden within the state of Tennessee itself, with the edge rusher visiting both Tennessee and Vanderbilt recently. The Commodores won out on the field in the rivalry game last Saturday in Knoxville, but a few days later Tennessee got a little payback in the recruiting world by outlasting Vandy for Gooden’s commitment and getting that flip from UCLA at the same time.
Gooden had committed to UCLA when DeShaun Foster was the head coach, but Foster was fired in September after the Bruins got off to an 0-3 start. There were other firings to the UCLA staff along with Foster, and Gooden started taking visits to other schools, possibly looking for a different destination in 2026.
On Signing Day, Gooden announced that new destination, and it’s Knoxville.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
