Five-star defensive lineman Lebbeus Overton, the No. 1-ranked prospect in the 2023 football class, is reclassifying to the 2022 class to enroll in college this spring.
Overton is a 6-foot-3, 265-pound prospect out of Milton High School in Milton, Georgia. Despite the fact that signing day passed for the 2022 class, Overton and his family have decided he will reclassify and join a university earlier than originally expected.
“He’s a 4.0 kid, he has been taking AP classes and so he’s got quite a few college credits already and was already in position to graduate this spring,” Overton’s father, Milton, told ESPN. “I would say just the last month or two, he kind of evaluated things after football season. His coach left, there are very few seniors left on the team … he wants to play for a championship.”
Milton Overton is the athletic director at Kennesaw State, but both he and Overton’s mother were academic advisers at the college level at one point in their careers. The family has been discussing this decision for a few months and decided this would be the best option at this point.
Lebbeus Overton outlined his top five schools as Georgia, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas A&M. Milton Overton says his son will take visits to all five schools over the next few months. Once all five visits are finished, Overton will make a decision that the family anticipates could happen around April.
“He knows there’s still a lot of work he’s going to do to prepare,” Milton Overton said. “He’s going to be going up against top-notch 300-pounders that are four- and five-star prospects as well.
“So it’s not going to be a walk in the park — he realizes that. He’s very competitive, so he knows he’s got to compete for everything and he doesn’t have expectations to come in and start right away or anything like that. He’s going to work for it.”
Overton and his family now face a truncated timeline to evaluate the schools that are recruiting him, but those programs have been building a relationship throughout the past few years, and the visits will help provide the final pieces to the puzzle.
Given his parents’ academic careers and his prowess in the classroom, Overton is looking for the perfect fit both academically and athletically.
“He’s very appreciative of all the schools that recruited him, everyone treated him with class with dignity and respect,” Milton Overton said. “This is all about finding the right fit for him and the decision that’s best for him.
“I’d say priority-wise, it’s always going to be school and academics, who’s going to provide the best academic opportunities for him in business and engineering. Secondly, it’s going to be where can he go and develop to become a better player, and that’s the order. So it’d be principle-based.”