After three months of keeping it a secret, 3-star defensive tackle Taurean Carter finally made his announcement in honor of his father's birthday today and committed to the University of Arkansas. Carter, who narrowed his choices to the Razorbacks, Michigan State and Wisconsin leading up to his announcement, ended up taking his final official visit to Fayetteville and never visited his other choices.

"I really fell in love with the coaches, the fans, everything that's out there," Carter said. "They're all really for Arkansas, they're ride or die for that team and I like that."

Carter is now one of nine defensive line commits in the Hogs' 2019 class that includes four 4-stars, Mataio Soli, Collin Clay, Eric Gregory and Dante Walker, and Carter's Legacy teammate Enoch Jackson Jr.

"I'm just excited to play with my brother Enoch for four or five more years on the way to the NFL," Carter said. "This recruiting class is just crazy. It's beyond belief. We're going to bring something to the SEC that no one is ready for. Everyone's sleeping on Arkansas and that's the way I want it to be."

Carter narrowed down all his offers, of which there were 17, including two SEC offers, but coincidentally landed on the coaching staff that actually gave him his very first offer. Chad Morris was the first coach to take a chance on Carter when he was at SMU.

"I've got a lot of faith in Coach Morris," Carter said. "I never knew that I'd be coming to play for him, he was the first one to give me the opportunity to play at the next level when and we have a lot of trust built up. His thing is offense and mine is defense and I think we'll work well together."

Listed at 6-foot-3 and 263 pounds, Carter is now probably closer to 280 and he's really made a lot of progress since his sophomore season at Legacy. He was offered by SMU in May of 2017 and didn't pick up another offer until that December.

"It was a stressful process. I put it in God's hands and he showed me the way and now I'm going to take advantage of it."

Despite having a long relationship with Morris, Carter needed to build a relationship with his future defensive line coaches John Scott and Steve Caldwell.

"The coaches already know how I am, I trust in them," Carter said. "I believe in the process and what they've got going on over there so I'm just going to buy in and flip this thing around. We're going to win a lot of big-time games."

The staff at Arkansas isn't done at Legacy High School yet, they've still got one huge target to nab, 4-star safety Jalen Catalon who is between Arkansas, Texas, OU and TCU.

"I'm working on JC now," Carter said. "We get him on board and it's game over."

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