USC Recruitment Party Huge Success, Five New Gamecocks for 2016

South Carolina coaches and staff hosted a recruitment pool party and cookout this past Friday, which yielded some big results over the weekend and early this week for the class of 2016.  This was the first year that USC has hosted an event that gives players a chance to mingle with current players, as well as the coaches, tour the campus and check out all the benefits that Columbia has to offer. USC has gained quite a lot of national press for the recruiting gains in the last seven days, as most of them were four star recruits and had multiple offers from some big names (Alabama, Auburn, Georgia and we will even include Clemson just for state rivalry).

DB Marlon Character of Atlanta was one of the most heavily recruited players that committed to USC.  He’s a 6 foot 2 inch, 170lb, 4 star recruit who picked Carolina over Auburn and will be playing cornerback, which is his preferred spot. Check out his recruitment highlight videos here.

LB PJ Blue, is a 6’2″, 204lb safety/outside linebacker from Alabama.  He’s the nation’s #24th outside linebacker and Alabama’s overall #8 player, making him another 4 star recruit.  If you watch even 30 seconds of his recruitment videos, you’ll see that he has power and speed, hopefully enough to make him a strong player on the line.

Carolina’s own Chris Smith, a DB from South Pointe (Rock Hill), is a 5’11” cornerback, weighing in at 180 lbs.  Although he’s only a two star recruit, he was heavily favored to join Carolina, following in the footsteps of other South Pointe alumni: Jadeveon Clowney, Stephon Gilmore, Devonte Holloman and current Gamecock Gerald Dixon.  You can check out his high school highlights here.

Akeem Cooperwood, a 6’7″, 325lb giant from Georgia Military College joins the Gamecocks as an right tackle as a 3 star recruit. He is ranked the nation’s #10 best offensive tackle (in junior colleges) and will be a great addition to our o-line.  Cooperwood has already reported that he loves the environment and the players at Carolina.  In every clip, Cooperwood lines up with his man and does not let him go until the play is done, which is exactly the type of good defense that we need at Carolina.

Although not announced over the weekend, Jordan Smith, a 4 star defensive end, committed to USC on Wednesday from a press conference at his high school in Lithonia, GA.  At 6’6″ and 220 lbs, Smith is Georgia’s overall #25 top player.  University of Georgia was recruiting Smith pretty hard as an outside linebacker, but he wanted the opportunity to grow as a defensive end, which Carolina offered.  Hard to argue with what the kid wants to play with clips like these.