Saturday after will start another weekend of Tar Heel targets in the 2023 class announcing their commitments. This weekend, the focus will be on the offensive line, as two 3✮ offensive tackle prospects will be those revealing the destinations.
The first of those will be 3✮ OT Koby Keenum, who will be announcing at his high school in Florence, AL at 12:00 PM EST live on his Instagram. The Tar Heels are one of three that remain for the No. 77 offensive tackle in the class according to the 247Sports Composite player rankings, along with Kentucky and Louisville. All three of those finalists received official visits in the past month with the Tar Heels getting the final shot on the weekend of June 24th. Unfortunately, it does not seem like getting that final visit will be enough in this one.
The Wildcats and Cardinals have actually been battling it for a while with and that was really who it came down to in the end. Kentucky has always appeared to be at the slight leader, but heading into the announcement, there is no question they are the favorites.
The recruiting experts strongly favor Keenum to the Wildcats to be the pick on Saturday. All four of the crystal ball predictions on 247Sports go their way right now with a confidence level of six or higher on each one. Rivals also has each one of their three picks going in favor of Kentucky with one expert actually flipping his original pick from Louisville. On3’s Recruiting Prediction Machine give the Wildcats a 94.5% to leave with his commitment.
The Tar Heels definitely made a push just to be able to get him on campus for an official visit and for that they deserve credit. This was an uphill battle, though, that ultimately won’t go there way on Saturday.
Prediction: Kentucky