Arkansas plays host to D-lineman Kemari Copeland for official visit

FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas played host to Iowa Western defensive lineman Kemari Copeland this weekend for an official visit.

Copeland, 6-3, 285, was wowed by the trip to Arkansas after arriving on Friday afternoon.

“The visit went well,” Copeland said. “It really exceeded my expectations first coming here. It’s not what I expected at all coming from Arkansas. First coming here, I thought it was going to be like tumble weeds everywhere you went. But coming here it exceeded my expectations. There’s a lot of businesses, a lot of cool things around here so I really like what I’ve seen.”

Copeland went into more detail on what exceeded his expectations about the visit.

“First was the area, I did not expect all these stores, the community,” Copeland said. “Everything around here it just feels like a nice home city and a nice place to live. When you think of Arkansas you think it’s one of the states like what’s around here?

“You really don’t know but coming down here if anything you have to check it out because it’s really not what you expect and then second I would say the facilities. The facilities are crazy top notch. Compared to other schools somethings in the facilities were way better than other facilities I’ve seen and lastly I’ll say the genuineness of the coaching staff. The coaching staff is real genuine and you can feel it when you first enter the building. Those are three things that really stood out to me.” 

Copeland also talked about what the visit did for Arkansas’ chances of landing him.

“It definitely heightened it a lot, it definitely heightened it a lot,” Copeland said. “For me I was going to make my decision based off of the schools I’ve seen and just the feel of it and being here it feels real genuine. This will definitely do something to my recruitment. Definitely got to reorganize the schools and stuff. But I really enjoyed it here.”

If Copeland chooses Arkansas he will be coached by Deke Adams. Arkansas’ assistant made a good impression on Copeland.

“Coach Adams, real genuine dude,” Copeland said. “I could tell that from the first phone call. I really enjoyed my conversations with the whole coaching staff. I just can’t harp on the genuineness, so genuine. It’s really enjoyable being down here.” 

Copeland holds 43 scholarship offers. He has helped Iowa Western to a 10-1 record. They have a playoff game next Sunday against Kilgore (Texas) College. The winner of that game will advance to the national championship game the following weekend in Little Rock.

In 11 games, Copeland has 36 tackles, 19 solo, 9 for loss, 4.5 sacks and a fumble recovery as well as one pass breakup.

He has his choices down to Arkansas, North Carolina State, Tennessee and Virginia Tech. He played his high school football at Virginia Beach Floyd Kellam. He had previously visited Tennessee.

“Guaranteed I’ll go to Virginia Tech December 15th,” Copeland said. “But if we don’t make the championship game I’ll try to get too NC State but we’ll see how that all unfolds. “ 

Copeland is a four-star recruit with Rivals.com. Texas A&M recently offered but the firing of Jimbo Fisher basically eliminated the Aggies before the recruiting got untracked.