Insider Report: Recruiting getting interesting
After South Carolina football hosted a wealth of big-time prospects over the weekend – including a pair of five-stars from the 2025 class – there are some very interesting returns to pass along.
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— Let’s start with five-star offensive tackle David Sanders, who’s the number 2 prospect in the country according to the On3 Industry Ranking.
South Carolina’s been involved here for quite a while, and our sense is that the Gamecocks entered this official visit weekend with plenty of catching up to do with the Charlotte product.
A few programs have seemed to take a turn at the top of Sanders’ list, and that may have even included South Carolina, albeit much earlier in the process.
It seems the public perception of this race is that the Clemson Tigers have held the cards. After speaking with multiple sources this weekend, we don’t believe that to be the case at this time. The Tigers probably did take their turn in pole position, but it’s Tennessee that seems to be drawing a good bit of attention right now. Sanders visited Knoxville back-to-back weekends this spring.
Sanders is going to take his time and go through the process, and his schedule reinforces that fact. The trip to USC over the weekend – joined by multiple members of his family – was the first of several. He will see Clemson, Georgia, Tennesee, Alabama, and Ohio State in the month of June. Looking at that, it’s not hard to envision further shifts in Sanders’ thinking. This is a big-time recruiting battle, and everyone including South Carolina’s staff knows that and is dug in for it.
What we do feel comfortable saying exiting the weekend is that the Gamecocks made up some ground here. One key will be whether or not USC can sustain a bit of that momentum and land a follow-up trip this summer, sandwiched in between all the official visits to competitors that Sanders will be making.
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— Our read on the situation right now is that the tight end to pay closest attention to for the Gamecocks is Hayden Bradley. He told GamecockCentral.com that his trip to Columbia was ‘elite’, and the timing of the visit was also interesting.
Bradley plans on revealing his group of finalists on April 24, then plans a commitment on the 27th.
We are in process of doing some final check-arounds, but we are getting pretty close to On3 RPM time for the Buford (Georgia) product.
— Monday marked the first occasion that GamecockCentral.com staff was able to be on the same team as Steve Wiltfong for a significant Fong Bomb.
That came in the morning, when Wiltfong placed an RPM pick in favor of South Carolina for four-star EDGE Jared Smith out of Alabama.
If anyone did not believe that the Gamecocks had a real chance here, that notion was erased when Smith scheduled three trips in the span of a few months to Columbia. He was on campus in January, back this weekend, and has an official visit scheduled in June.
There are some trips looming large here for Smith, who could end up seeing Ole Miss, Georgia, Tennessee, and Southern Cal this summer on an official basis as well. That’s a scary slate to go up against, to be quite frank.
If anyone’s game for the challenge, it’s Sterling Lucas, who stepped right into college ball from the NFL ranks and started beating out veterans and blueboods for big-time talents. He’s once again going toe to toe in this one, and has USC in a nice spot for one of the country’s best pass-rushers.
There’s a ways to go here, but there’s plenty of evidence that Smith really likes South Carolina.
— The other five-star who was on campus on Saturday was five-star linebacker Zayden Walker.
On3’s Chad Simmons reports that Walker is essentially down to Georgia, Miami, and South Carolina, with Penn State hanging around to get an official visit this summer. We would co-sign, but also say that this more a Dawgs/Gamecocks battle, something that Simmons has also reported in the past.
We cannot convey the exact number, but Walker has been to Columbia somewhere on the order of 11 or 12 times, at least, during the recruiting process. That includes not only this weekend’s trip for the spring game, but the weekend one before, too.
Earlier on in this one, the sense was that the Gamecocks could be in the mix here with the family connection to Jalewis Solomon. Georgia was always seen as the program that would be very difficult to unseat. Both were accurate, and it seemed a bit inevitable that Walker would ultimately matriculate to Athens.
UGA is UGA, and you never count out Kirby Smart and his crew. But over the last few months, South Carolina’s chipped away. So much so that, this has become legitimately attainable for Shane Beamer.
Walker does not sign today, of course, and it looks like he will finish out his slate of official visits this summer – the Gamecocks get the last one – before making a commitment. USC’s carrying some positive momentum as the summer approaches.
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