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Columbia receiver Marcus Peterson, a 2022 3-star prospect, verbally committed to Cincinnati on Sunday. He's pictured on his visit to Cincinnati on June 20. (COURTESY)
Marcus Peterson says he’s joining another Columbia receiver at Cincinnati.
The Tigers’ standout wideout verbally committed to the Bearcats via the USA Today Network on Sunday. Should Peterson sign his letter of intent in December, he’ll be teammates with 2020 CHS graduate Marquez Bell, who is entering his sophomore season at Cincinnati.
Peterson, who is rated a 3-star prospect by 247Sports and Rivals, made his choice in a personal essay after visiting Cincinnati on June 20. The rising senior chose the Bearcats over Florida State, UCF and Pittsburgh, the schools he announced as part of his final four last week.
The decision comes after taking trips to all four universities over the past month. Peterson took an official visit to Pittsburgh on June 4, an unofficial visit to Florida State on June 6 and an official visit to UCF on June 11 before going to Cincinnati last weekend.
He then took one last visit to UCF again on Friday, but it wasn’t enough to sway Peterson to choose the Knights.
“I’m happy to announce that I’ll be taking my talents to the University of Cincinnati,” Peterson said in the essay. “When they offered me, the coaches hit me up every day and checked on me. The coaches are good guys and there’s a vibe where it’s chill. It was very important to me that I got to visit the schools I was interested in this month. I needed to see the school in person to examine it to see if I really wanted to go there.
“Cincinnati is far away from home, so I can get my mind off everything and just play football. It’s grind mode. It also helped that one of my former teammates, Marquez Bell, is there and he’s had a good time there. He kept it real with me — how coach is going to be, how things operate around there. it just made me comfortable.
“I’m ready to go. I’m a Bearcat.”
The 6-foot-2, 197-pound pass catcher is rated as the No. 42 tight end in the nation and the No. 103 player in its composite rankings. But Peterson made it clear in the essay he’ll be playing receiver at Cincinnati.
He let all the coaches recruiting him know that too.
“Some schools were recruiting me to play wide receiver and some wanted to play tight end. I’m not a tight end,” Peterson wrote. “I tell every coach that who offers me as a tight end that I wasn’t playing tight end any of my years that I played, so for them to recruit me as a tight end, I just wasn’t interested.”
Cincinnati was Peterson’s pick out of more than 30 scholarship offers following his breakout junior season at Columbia. He was the Tigers’ top offensive player in 2021 after not playing football as a sophomore, catching 19 passes for 286 yards and a team-high seven touchdowns while splitting time at quarterback, where he threw for 734 yards and six touchdowns in addition to rushing for 205 yards and four more scores.
Columbia also used Peterson as a punter and he averaged 33.8 yards per kick, pinning 11 inside the 20-yard line. He even had a game-clinching interception against North Miami Beach in the team’s first win of the season, which started a five-game winning streak as the Tigers overcame an 0-5 start to the season to reach their first regional final since 2015.
Peterson was named to the LCR’s all-area team and earned honorable mention on the Class 6A all-state team.
As a two-sport athlete at Columbia, Peterson also helped the basketball team reached the Class 6A Final Four in 2020 and the regional semifinals this past winter. He was named to the LCR’s all-area basketball team in both seasons.
“The recruiting process has been crazy,” Peterson also wrote. “There are positives to it for sure. It’s good because you get offers and you can go anywhere in the country. But it’s difficult when you get phone calls back-to-back and then texts back-to-back. There were a lot of times where my phone just kept blowing up. It’s been stressful and I’m glad that I’m committing now.”