Injury changes Tranquills recruiting outlook

Fort Wayne (Ind.) Carroll three-star athlete Justin Tranquill was ready to transition from a highly-successful off-season into his senior campaign until injury struck.

The 5-foot-10, 175-pound Tranquill tore his ACL at a 7-on-7 tournament in June and had surgery shortly after.

"I am about three weeks post-op on the surgery now," Tranquill reported. "I have been doing my rehab - I started the day after the surgery - and things are going really well. My physical therapist told me I was already about two weeks ahead of schedule."

The injury, however, has curtailed Tranquill's recruiting momentum that he had built following several strong summer camp performances at college campuses.

"Recruiting-wise things have obviously slowed down with any school that was close to offering me," he said. "Schools like Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Notre Dame, they didn't necessarily say they weren't interested anymore, but they want to see where things go and how my recovery goes."

Prior to the injury, though, Tranquill had accumulated nine scholarship offers, and most of those schools are sticking with him.

"The schools that are showing me heavy interest right now are Western Michigan and IU," Tranquill said. "They have shown me a lot of support during this time.

"The only school that has had an issue with it was Illinois. They had another defensive back commit and then this happened, so they were the only school that pulled their offer."

Tranquill will be unable to play his senior season, so everything he has to show college coaches has already been shown. That has also affected his game plan for the recruiting process.

"It has definitely made me realize that maybe I do need to make a decision soon," Tranquill said. "I can't do anything this senior season to increase my recruiting activity, so at this point I have narrowed it down to the schools that currently have scholarship offers for me like IU, Western Michigan, Cincinnati and other MAC schools.

"I haven't been able to decide who will be my in my top (group) yet. (Indiana) has obviously been up there for awhile because of multiple factors - close to home, like the coaching staff, academics are great and have a good chance of coming in and earning a starting position."

Before Tranquill makes his college selection, though, he wants to visit each school under consideration and expects to start that this month with unofficial visits.

"I'm trusting God has a plan on how this all turns out and I'm just trying to stay positive throughout this whole process," he said. "It was kind of upsetting and difficult to accept it, but I can't do anything to change it now so I am just trying to focus on the positives that have come from it."