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*** Over the weekend, a large contingent of prospects hit Baton Rouge for what amounted to a big recruiting weekend for the Tigers.
If that sounds strange, it’s because the SEC suspended in-person recruiting activities back in March, meaning that coaches have been unable to conduct any face-to-face contacts with prospects in several months.
What that did leave on the table was the possibility for prospects to go to campuses on their own and check out facilities, meet up with current players from that school, and the like.
As for this weekend, current LSU quarterback commitment Garrett Nussmeier has been credited with helping to organize the activities in Baton Rouge. Georgia and Oklahoma have had similar events recently in having several high-value targets on campus in Athens and Norman, respectively, for supposedly prospect-arranged activities.
Some of our subscribers may wonder if you’ll see something similar to this at South Carolina, and the answer is not to bank on it. One aspect of having these large groups visit your campus – from multiple states – is that the prospects have had contact with members of the current team. During a time in which coaching staffs are doing everything they can to keep COVID-19 away from the team (not only positive tests and anything that may come with that, but quarantines from contact tracing), having team members feeling compelled to hang out with prospects that are rolling through campus is not something that South Carolina appears to want in on at this time.
There have been some prospects that have driven through Columbia or got out to walk around campus individually on their own dime and time, and there could be some more of that in the future.
*** Back to recruiting in a more specific sense:
One of the players that was at LSU over the weekend was Florida’s Michael Trigg, a tight end that South Carolina has been doing well with on the recruiting trial.
Trigg’s final three consists of LSU, South Carolina, and Southern Cal, and it’s believed that the first two have the most traction right now. Trigg’s trip to Baton Rouge over the weekend was his first, and in the aftermath we’ve heard some conflicting information as to which program may have the true edge. LSU, from what we’re told, has some level of confidence but believes South Carolina is a significant competitor. The Gamecocks have also had some reasonable reason for confidence.
On the LSU end, we also hear that feedback from other prospects that were on campus did not yield a feeling that Trigg was imminently bound for Baton Rouge, which could be construed as a positive for the Gamecocks.
Trigg, who also has hoops as a component of his choice, has mulled making a decision sometime this football season.
*** South Carolina still has a significant in-state target on the board in Gaffney’s Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins, a four-star defensive lineman with a final four of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
From what we have gathered in recent days, the feel we get is that the schools from the SEC appear to dominate the conversation behind the scenes for Ingram-Dawkins. In assessing the leader, his recruitment reminds us a bit of Jordan Burch’s in the 2020 class, in which multiple programs felt good simultaneously about their chances to land the prospect. Ingram-Dawkins, notably, has handled his process much differently from Burch in terms of his social media activity and affinity for the process itself.
South Carolina has an excellent relationship with “Big T” and his family and both parties have already spoken this week. We also know that Ingram-Dawkins still communicates regularly with all of his suitors, and undoubtedly there are things said that give each one reason to feel legitimately in the race.
Only one can be right, and in a situation like this it’s hard to be sure. If we had to put all the chips on the table, they’d be garnet and black.
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