South Carolina Football: Elite New England prospect rising in rankings, has Gamecocks in top-5

The class of 2025 recruiting rankings have recently been coming together. The top end of the class has been ranked, but the rest of the players in the 2025 cycle will have to wait a bit for more consistent rankings. South Carolina football is in on some of the players at the very top of the class (Elijah Griffin, David Sanders, Jordan Young, etc.), but they are also involved with players who are more underrated. One of these underrated players is Rhode Island native David Rodriguez.

Rodriguez is considered the top prospect in all of New England by PrepRedzone and has been rated as a high 3-star prospect by 247Sports as 247 has already gone deep into their recruiting rankings. However, college coaching staffs understand that the skinny athlete has the potential to grow into a very good player. This potential has resulted in him receiving offers from big-time programs like South Carolina, Florida, Penn State, Michigan, Georgia, Maryland, and Kentucky.

Rodriguez is the only New England area prospect that South Carolina seems to be involved with in the 2025 cycle as of right now, but they have a prospect committed from New England in the 2024 recruiting class in quarterback Dante Reno.

Several weeks ago, Rodriguez released an early top-5. The 6’1″, 165-pound athlete named his finalists as South Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Maryland, and Penn State.

https://twitter.com/david4degraff/status/1650931740230275072?s=20

Rodriguez appears to be set to continue rising up the rankings, and it will be interesting to see how he will be evaluated when the next round of rankings is released.

It is not 100% clear what position Rodriguez will play when he gets to college. At the high school level, he is both a wide receiver and a defensive back. Having finished just half of his high school career, he seems better suited to play receiver, but he still has plenty of time to grow into a better player on both sides of the ball.