Why Brandon Winton Jr. may be missing piece to Alcoa's ninth straight TSSAA football title

Brandon Winton Jr. returned from IMG Academy after spending a season at the Florida boarding school while being recruited by South Florida football.

He'll return to Florida in January as USF early enrollee. But not before he plays this fall for Tennessee high school football powerhouse Alcoa.

Winton, a 6-foot, 175-pound athlete, is No. 5 on The Knox News Elite 8, a collection of the top college football recruits in the Knoxville area as picked by the newspaper for the Class of 2024. Winton is the No. 21 recruit in the state and a three-star athlete according to the 247Sports Composite.

Key to winning the next state championship

Alcoa has won eight straight TSSAA Class 3A state championships along with a state-leading 21 football championships in school history. With the addition of Winton, Alcoa coach Brian Nix thinks the Tornadoes can do just that by combating last year's team weaknesses.

"Anytime offensively if you don't have a guy that can threaten you down the field as a receiver, it's hard to score a lot of points," Nix said. "You look at the really good offenses when we played West last year, with a couple of receivers that they had even in (East) Nashville in the state championship game, 26 points.

"I think that is the most points we gave up in a championship game since 2004. A lot of that had to do with the stress that those two deep-threat receivers they had put on our defense so I think when you can put a guy like (Winton) outside it makes it really hard to man him up."

WINTON'S TRANSFER TO ALCOA FROM IMG: Basketball and football star Brandon Winton Jr. transfers to Alcoa, leaving IMG Academy

How Winton ended up at Alcoa

After coming back from IMG Academy, Winton had to find out where he would go to school next. Before IMG, he was once at Webb School of Knoxville.

But there was one thing about Alcoa that no other school in the Knoxville area had — his best friend Jahvin Carter. Carter, a senior basketball player, was one of the deciding factors in where Winton wanted to go for his final year of high school.

Carter has loved every second of Winton being at the same school as him, not only because he loved playing basketball with him, but because he has been wanting to be in school with him for quite some time.

"Not gonna lie. We've been trying. I've been trying to get him like we've been trying to team up. Wherever I go, like we've been talking to trying to get him to Alcoa since middle school," Carter said.

Why Winton chose South Florida

Former Tennessee offensive coordinator Alex Golesh had his eye on Winton since he was the Tennessee offensive coordinator and still held that interest when he went on to become the South Florida football coach.

Golseh is known for playing a key part in last year's fast-paced Vols' offense. He is working to do that once again with the Bulls.

Golesh took advantage of Winton's time at IMG Academy. Winton was just an hour from USF, and Golesh was able to recruit him before he transferred back to Tennessee.

"Speaking for itself, coach Golseh and the offense that he ran last year at UT, that's any up-and-coming receiver's dream to play in that type of offense," Winton said. "Another reason behind it, he's been recruiting since my sophomore year when he was at UT.

"So from that time to now, we have been building up a little bit by little bit and when he got to South Florida as soon as he got his stuff, they gave me a call and they just seriously were pushing me to it."

Already has a championship with Alcoa

This year's goal is to win a state Championship with the Alcoa football team. However, Winton has already achieved that with another Alcoa team. After arriving late in the basketball season, Winton joined his friend Carter on the basketball team to play one last season. Winton plans on enrolling early at South Florida.

Carter and Winton teamed up to help lead Alcoa to the 2023 Class 2A basketball championship.

What they didn't know is that the pair would come together to win big and secure the 2023 TSSAA Class 2A State Championship together.

"He really played and did it for me," Carter said. "He was already committed to South Florida, he already got plans to play football, so he just really did it for me. For him to be at Alcoa for two or three months and win a state championship, we haven't won the state championship for 66 years, it's just crazy to do that."

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: USF football recruiting: Brandon Winton lured by Alex Golesh's fast offense