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*** Let’s begin with the latest on one of USC’s most high-profile targets remaining in the 2020 class: Hammond’s Jordan Burch.
After the first several months of a calendar year that’s seen him take more visits to Columbia than anywhere else, it was time for Burch to return to Clemson for a stay that lasted from Thursday afternoon until Saturday, when he then made his way over to Athens to see Georgia.
South Carolina’s staff elected not to have a dedicated recruiting event this past weekend, but we feel confident in saying that Burch was going to be traveling to Clemson and Georgia later in the week/over the weekend regardless, just to clear that up.
Burch is typically quiet and reserved during college visits, thus making it difficult for any involved parties to get a true sense of what he’s thinking. Beyond the standards of “Burch enjoyed himself”, that’s going to be the case with his latest two trips as well. The five-star prospect has remarked behind the scenes at times that he would like to have the opportunity to play for a championship, and that’s why Alabama and LSU have drawn visits and one reason that Clemson and Georgia are significant contenders for the Gamecocks as well.
As we have said multiple times, Burch’s recruitment is insulated and it’s unique, so it will not come down to a singular factor such as “winning”. Jordan’s quite close with immediate family, and that’s still expected to weigh quite heavily in this one. South Carolina’s long had outstanding relationships in this recruitment, and that remains the case. It’s often been wondered if there was any potential for Burch to render a commitment at some point this summer. Based on what we have to go on, we would expect this process to continue for some time.
*** Tank Bigsby was at one point planning on traveling to Georgia on Saturday, but instead was in Auburn, telling Jeffrey Lee of AuburnSports.com that his mother did not want to travel as far.
Even when the Gamecocks had a huge lead for Bigsby earlier this year and all signs pointed to USC, we told subscribers that it wasn’t done until it was done and that Auburn and Georgia would try to prolong the situation. That’s come to pass, with Georgia perhaps making a bigger push than anticipated with their recent prioritization of Tank.
South Carolina continues to work the situation, even though there’s conflicting info circulating behind the scenes as to where things may actually stand. There’s no doubt that Auburn and Georgia have both made huge pushes.
Everything has seemed to be building to a preseason decision for Bigsby based on what he’s said publicly and privately numerous times. Of particular note here is that he said after the Auburn visit that he now is looking to decide in December, soon before leaving for early enrollment at the school of his choice.
At one point, South Carolina needed Bigsby to go ahead and drop an early commitment to get him in the boat – i.e. the more time passed, the more difficult it would become. Now? Perhaps the opposite is true. Maybe the Gamecocks need to the process to continue until December, as Bigsby has stated, and see where the chips have fallen at that point.
*** Speaking of Auburn, there was plenty of discussion on The Insiders Forum on Sunday when we passed along that USC DB commitment Joey Hunter was on Auburn’s campus along with his mother.
We spoke with Hunter himself about the visit to The Plains, and he cleared the air by saying that he was in town to visit his cousin and that Auburn’s staff asked him to drop by.
“Not a recruiting trip, though,” he told GamecockCentral.com. “(USC) is still my home, I ain’t going anywhere.”
*** Even since our last Insider Report that indicated several parties still believed USC was the frontrunner for Tonka Hemingway, we’ve continued to check on the status of the Conway product.
The longtime Gamecock target is expected to make a choice sometime next month, and multiple sources that we have checked in with belief that South Carolina’s in good shape.
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