Florida athlete Tyree Gillespie commits to Missouri

On the second-to-last weekend before National Signing Day, Missouri ended up hosting a number of commits but only one uncommitted player: Ocala (Fla.) Vanguard High School safety Tyree Gillespie.

Peer pressure works! According to PowerMizzou, Gillespie committed on Saturday.

Gillespie is an interesting prospect in that he is kind of a recruiting afterthought — two stars via both Rivals and the 247Sports Composite — but from the standpoint of stats and physical measures, he looks great. His Hudl film is just a mix tape of long, explosive runs, and his stats back that up: Per MaxPreps, in two years, he carried the ball 47 times for 660 yards (that’s 14.0 yards per carry) and seven scores. He also picked off two passes in 2016. His measurables are also solid.

Considering he played for a team that ranked in the overall top 30 in Florida (again per MaxPreps), you’d think that that would be enough to earn him a few offers. Instead, his only listed major offers are from Mizzou and Iowa State.

So what gives? I’m sure we’ll be finding more information in the coming days, but perhaps it’s because he didn’t get involved in football until later in his career? MaxPreps says he only played three games in 2015 and has nothing listed before that. Perhaps early evaluation did him no favors because of that. Perhaps he didn’t get involved in the camp circuit. (Another reason services sometimes end up underrating a kid is if the player has no chance of qualifying. But we’ve heard nothing about shaky academics from Gillespie.)

Regardless, Gillespie is a Tiger now. He is Mizzou’s 21st commit of the 2017 class. He is listed as a safety, meaning he joins fellow 2017 DBs Terry Petry, Joshuah Bledsoe, Adam Sparks, and Jordan Ulmer on the commit list, but since his film is mostly as a running back, you figure that might be an eventual option as well.

WELCOME, TYREE.