South Carolina Football: Gamecocks made top-8 for 4-star in class of 2025

South Carolina football has made lots of recruiting news this offseason, but most of it has been for the 2024 cycle as they have picked up commitments from blue chip recruits like Josiah Thompson and continue to pursue elite prospects like Dylan Stewart.

On Monday, though, the Gamecocks made waves in the class of 2025. 4-star linebacker DJ McClary released his top-8 schools, and South Carolina football made the cut.

McClary’s top-8 included South Carolina, Southern Cal, Penn State, Rutgers, Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio State, and Oregon. In his top-8 announcement, McClary did make sure to mention that his recruitment is still fully open, but his list represented his current favorite schools.

McClary is from Henry Snyder High School in Jersey City, New Jersey and is a consensus 4-star prospect. Standing at 6’1″ and weighing in at 210 pounds, McClary is considered to be one of the top-150 players in the class of 2025. With two more seasons left to play at the high school level, he should only get better.

On film, McClary’s athleticism impresses as he plays both ways for the Snyder Tigers. Splitting his time between quarterback and running back on offense, he rushed for over 2000 yards last season. At linebacker, McClary is a fierce tackle who knows how to gain ground while diagnosing a play.

He seems to love contact and is a big hitter on both sides of the ball, bouncing off and through would-be tacklers with the ball in his hand and exploding through the bodies of opposing ball carriers.

His high school coach has compared him to UCLA two-way star. As a running back and linebacker, Jack was extremely productive in the Pac-12 in the mid-2010s. He went on to play 7 years in the NFL as a linebacker. If McClary can provide that type of production, any collegiate program will be lucky to land him in next year’s recruiting class.

You can watch some his film here.