South Carolina Football: 4-star Gamecock target, former Ohio State commit to visit soon

The South Carolina football coaching staff has been recruiting the class of 2025 for a long time. Though fans have been preoccupied with the '24 cycle until very recently, the '25 class has been getting attention from college coaches everywhere.

One of the top players in the 2025 class and one of the first players the Gamecock coaches started targeting is Georgia defensive back Jontae Gilbert.

Gilbert was committed to the Ohio State Buckeyes for a time but after taking multiple visits to check out the South Carolina football program and other schools, he decommitted from Ryan Day's Buckeyes.

According to a report from On3's Chad Simmons, Gilbert will be back on campus in Columbia soon.

Simmons says that Gilbert will visit the weekend of January 27th. He will take trips to Georgia and Tennessee the prior two weekends.

As a player, Jontae Gilbert has been rated as high as a 5-star at earlier points in his recruitment. He is one of the few high school prospects who truly plays both safety and corner at a high enough level to make projecting his future position difficult.

Gilbert is an aggressive defender who plays with physicality. As a corner, he excels in man coverage, and at safety, he does well playing the middle of the field and loves coming down in run support.

With another year of high school development (and recruiting), Gilbert's future is still very much in the air. He has released different lists of top schools (a top-7 after decommitting from Ohio State and a top-10 in the fall), but South Carolina football has made the cut every time.

South Carolina, Clemson, and Georgia Tech are major factors in his recruitment, but Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Southern Cal, Texas, Colorado, Auburn, LSU, NC State, and even Ohio State are still in the mix.