I've held off on summarizing things lately because theres relatively little hard info to talk about. A lot of this is educated guesswork based on quotes and other sites. A recruiting quiet period begins on Sunday, and a Dead Period on Feb 1. NSD is Wednesday. Phone contact is allowed during the Dead Period but in-home visits will be done by then.
- DT Ethan Farmer and OLB Darius Lipford are fully expected to sign with UNC. However, it still appears that Farmer will be placed in a JUCO or prep school.
- All of our LB eggs are in the Justin Parker basket. We appear to have lost out on Bohanna and backed off. His latest recruiting diary lists Clemson, LSU, and SC in order. Dabo has the last in-home visit this Saturday night. I think he is Clemson's to lose. Clemson should have brought in another LB in this class either way, Ricky Chaney is slated to SS and not LB.
- Carver DE Corey Crawford was re-evaluated to 4 stars by Rivals.
- Carver OG David Beasley took an official visit to UGA after saying he was done with his recruitment and telling UGA to back away. Thing is, he didnt say it to Richt/Searels' face, he does it via messages. UGA won't back off him until he does that, and he hasnt. He always says he wants to come to Clemson, but UGA was in-home with his parents while Dabo waited outside to see them next. This feels like A.J. Harmon again to me and of all our commits this feels the most shaky.
- I think UGA has done a pisspoor job in evaluating players under Richt. They always seem to come in late on a prospect, be it from late offers or lazy evaluations. They are in a supremely talent-rich state where most all the people love UGA. GT isnt a real threat to them, though Auburn/FSU are in south Georgia. UGA should have 20 commits by March almost every year. Instead they come in late and pull them away (and yes I did see this posted on TI by OF, and I 100% completely agree with it, just cant link it, apologies to him if he believes we ripped him in any way.)
- CB commit Darius Robinson took a secret visit to Auburn last weekend, against the wishes of the staff. He also took one to Kentucky that we found out about, and he didnt want our staff to know. Its my understanding that he lied about visiting them to Harbison/Swinney, and Dabo didn't like it. We threatened to pull his offer if he didn't come clean about it all, and he did. His parents wanted him to take the visits and shop around, in effect, before committing. I'm not sure I buy it all after his other quotes previously, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt. He apologized to our staff and appears to be fully committed now.
- Kind of the same thing may have happened with RB D.J. Howard, currently an Auburn commit, who took a last-second visit to CU this past weekend without telling the Auburn coaches until he was already on campus. Word is, they were quite disappointed. He may have had his offer threatened by their staff as well. If Marcus Lattimore picks Auburn, I fully expect D.J. to come to Clemson, despite his quotes to the contrary. They will have two of the best backs in the SE and he wants to play at RB in college. He would be Clemson's 2nd RB this year, and we still plan to take a couple next year.
- Clemson did offer a scholarship to Transfer QB Zach Maynard, half brother of Keenan Allen. Allen and Maynard want to play together, and after their visit to CU, they cancelled the visit to NC State. They are going to visit California this weekend. If Maynard was offered by Bama, we would likely lose out, but they have not offered him a scholarship (maybe a grayshirt) yet. Given that we're 3000 miles closer to their home, I think Clemson is in the cat bird seat here. Pulling down Allen would be a huge get for us. He would likely play in the slot WR position right away, maybe over McNeal or Marquan.
- 2011 WR Maurice Harris is the cousin of Allen/Maynard, and we could get him as well if we got even one of the two. Bama, Cal, Clemson, and UNC have all offered Harris already.
If we got all these guys to finish out, and it'll come down to NSD, we'd be definitely Top 15, and maybe Top 10.