UNC Football: Tar Heels leading for coveted 4-star prospect?

Mack Brown and the UNC football program are on a roll, and it looks like they’re just getting started.

The North Carolina Tar Heels have already received commitments from 11 players in the class of 2022, and they’ve still got a number of other prospects that they hope to add to the mix. That includes Sebastian Cheeks, a highly-touted linebacker from Evanston, Illinois that’s preparing to announce his college decision on July 28.

A 6-foot-3, 210-pound senior at Evanston Township, Cheeks is ranked among the top linebackers in the nation, and the Tar Heels look to be the frontrunner in his recruitment. That is, if the folks over at 247Sports and Rivals are right in their assumptions that Cheeks — the 131st overall prospect in the 2022 class — will end up in Chapel Hill next fall. Eight of the nine predictions made by recruiting experts and analysts across the two sites favor the Tar Heels.

That the Tar Heels appear to be leading in the Cheeks recruitment is a recent development, as the Texas Longhorns were considered the clear-cut leader just a few weeks ago. If Mack Brown and company can, in fact, close the deal on Cheeks, it would be a huge boost for the Tar Heels’ 2022 class, as they’ve currently got just two linebacker commitments from high school seniors — Shelby’s Malaki Hamrick and Mauldin’s Deuce Caldwell.

Cheeks, the No. 15 linebacker in his class according to the 247Sports Composite, has also received strong interest from the likes of Michigan, Oregon and Wisconsin, among others. In total, Cheeks gathered nearly 30 scholarship offers, which makes sense for a player with as much skill and upside as he possesses. The fourth-ranked prospect in the state of Illinois, Cheeks is an athletic, explosive, potentially versatile prospect that will excel in a 3-4 defense, but should be able to perform well in other schemes, too.

Check back with Keeping It Heel for all the latest on the Sebastian Cheeks recruitment, and everything UNC football.