Jadeveon Clowney Is A Gamecock: Top Recruit Picks South Carolina Over Clemson, Alabama

Clowney has listed friends and family as his primary reasons for picking Carolina over Alabama, though in this story he also specifically mentions the female population from each school in separate anecdotes. Clowney describes South Carolina’s female students as being “all on you,” while he insists he didn’t have anything to do with Clemson’s ladies.

Don’t know about you, but that pretty much explains the whole thing to me.

Good news for any South Carolina fans worrying about Jadeveon Clowney’s somewhat iffy quotes after his televised commitment to the Gamecocks: Clowney’s decision is official now that South Carolina has his National Letter of Intent, according to 247 Sports’ South Carolina site.

Don’t know what a National Letter of Intent is? Here’s an explanation:

The New York Times caused a brief kerfuffle over the weekend when they published a story suggesting that Jadeveon Clowney’s academic record strongly resembled the academic record of someone who might have to attend a prep school prior to attending a university.

Clowney says this will not be an issue for him:

Jadeveon Clowney’s commitment to South Carolina has our Gamecocks blog, Garnet and Black Attack, more than a little happy to land the nation’s No. 1 recruit, both because of how good Clowney could be and because of what this recruiting win might mean.

And make no mistake, this is likely going to be remembered as a watershed moment in the rivalry (with Clemson) as well as the larger history of USC’s program. If Clowney ends up being as good as advertised, we’re going to remember this day for a long time. It’s great for the program’s image. USC was on display and looking good for a national audience today. Clowney and USC are currently on the front page of ESPN.com and will be the day’s most significant story in sports. The announcement ceremony was nationally televised. These kinds of moments used to be rarities for Carolina, but they’ve been more and more common over the past few months. When we beat Alabama and Florida and Lattimore and Alshon Jeffery were becoming household names, I said that the exposure we were receiving would bolster this program’s profile and recruiting to our continued benefit. Clowney’s signing is another one of those types of moments.South Carolina won the SEC East last year, and was in the SEC Championship Game with eventual BCS national champion Auburn until a fluke Hail Mary stretched the Tigers’ lead just before halftime. With Clowney and an excellent recruiting class joining the Gamecocks’ strong offensive core, South Carolina fans will be dreaming even bigger in the future.

Jadeveon Clowney’s televised decision to commit to South Carolina was not without its strange moments, which is more or less how these things go. Travis Haney of the Charleston Post and Courier is at South Pointe High School and collecting quotes, and he paints a picture of a teenager who may have made the least worst choice instead of the best.

From Haney’s Twitter feed:

Jadeveon Clowney will be a South Carolina Gamecock. But will the South Carolina Gamecocks win SEC and national titles with him in Columbia?

The National Football Post analyzed the careers of the last 25 years of top recruits, and found just six that won national championships: Ricky Watters at Notre Dame; Marquette Smith, Chris Weinke — albeit ten years after his original commitment in 1990 — and Anquan Boldin at Florida State; D.J. Williams at Miami; and Vince Young at Texas.

Jadeveon Clowney’s commitment to South Carolina might make the Gamecocks defense the best in the SEC East in the fall. It could also help get Steve Spurrier back to the SEC Championship Game, and maybe bring the Gamecocks their first-ever SEC Championship.

That’s partly thanks to how good Clowney is: he’ll arguably be one of the most talented defensive ends in the SEC as soon as he suits up, and might make up for the losses of talented seniors like Chris Culliver and Patrick DiMarco. Best in the SEC East is a possibility; more likely, Clowney just means the drop-off from the strong 2010 defense to an above-average 2011 defense isn’t as severe as it could have been.

This fall, Jadeveon Clowney will be a South Carolina Gamecock. And with that, recruiting for the class of 2011 is done.

In his nationally televised announcement on ESPN this morning, Clowney, wearing a garnet shirt and a black tie, chose South Carolina over Clemson, joining an impressive class put together by Steve Spurrier, staying in the Palmetto State, and heading to a school he feels comfortable with.

Jadeveon Clowney is set to reveal his college choice this morning on ESPN, ending months of speculation by recruiting experts about where the massively talented defensive end will ply his trade at the next level. Here’s what you need to know in brief.

Time: 10:15 a.m. Eastern.

TV broadcast: ESPN, in a SportsCenter break-in.

Location: South Pointe High School, Clowney’s alma mater to be, in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Trivia: Clowney was a Stallion in high school.

Teams considering: Clowney’s down to South Carolina and Clemson, by most reports, but Alabama could still be in the mix.

Why it matters: Clowney is one of the most coveted high school recruits ever, and should be a fierce defensive end in college and possibly in the NFL.

Prediction: Clowney’s talked about staying where he feels comfortable; that will be the deciding factor in him becoming a Gamecock.

Further reading: Check out the rest of our college football recruiting StoryStream for a history of Clowney’s decision to announce his college choice on Valentine’s Day; check Shakin the Southland and Garnet and Black Attack for reactions from Clemson and South Carolina fans, or head to Garnet and Black Attack’s open thread for real-time reactions.

Jadeveon Clowney, the top prize of 2011 college football recruiting, will announce his commitment to South Carolina, Clemson, or Alabama at 10:15 p.m. ET on Monday. His decision will be broadcast live on ESPNU and covered right here, of course. The defensive end is choosing between South Carolina, Clemson and Alabama.

So what would a Clowney signature mean for each of the schools in the running. Let’s take a look?

One of the nation’s most highly touted recruits, Jadeveon Clowney, is going to announce Monday that he will attend either South Carolina or Clemson. Maybe. The New York Times is now raising concerns that Clowney might not qualify to play for either of the Palmetto State’s programs based on his academics.

The most damning assessment comes from Troy Davis, who coaches football at Hargrave Military Academy. Davis’ program gets a lot of its players from recruits that don’t meet the NCAA’s standards and need a couple of years of better grades to play football at the highest level.

We’re just under a week away from the signing of the very last unsigned (and best) blue-chip prospect in the college football recruiting class of 2011: Jadeveon Clowney, a strongside defensive end with a name as outstanding as his hair, will announce his college choice next Monday, which also happens to be his birthday. With a flourish of a pen, Clowney will change the football fortunes of one team; he’s already narrowed his choices to the three programs to which he took official visits: Alabama, Clemson, and South Carolina. (For whatever this is worth, Clowney has expressed a desire to stay close to home, and Alabama fans don’t hold out much hope of swiping him from the Palmetto State.) And while he’s been remarkably closemouthed about the process so far, did Clowney tip his selection on Monday in an interview with the New York Times?

As it turns out, Clowney’s choice to delay his announcement might have helped Clemson’s chances.

“Clemson had a good recruiting class,” Clowney said Monday in a telephone interview. “If I go, they would have an even better one. They had all the top linebackers, and I was thinking I could join them.”

Landing Clowney would be a huge get for a Dabo Swinney recruiting class that’s already bursting with five-star recruits.

“Jacoby will be a good fit in our program,” said head coach Will Muschamp. “He is an outstanding quarterback and we are excited to have him join the Gator family.”

Even after the announcement, Brissett’s status as a Gator was a bit up in the air thanks to the strenuous objections of his mother over his spurning of Miami:

“I’m very disappointed. I didn’t like the way Florida handled the process. I’ve never been able to meet the head coach. ... I’ve never met (Will Muschamp) face-to-face and I find that very disrespectful and I’m just hurt with the whole process with the Gators. I was hoping that he would respect me and go to ‘The U’ because ‘The U’ showed respect to his mom.”

Brissett is the 75th-ranked prospect overall in the Rivals 100, and listed as the third-best quarterback in the 2011 recruiting glass. For more on him and other Florida Gators athletics news, visit SB Nation’s Alligator Army.

Finally, Cyrus Kouandjio has decided on a college. And it’s Alabama.

Kouandjio committed to Auburn on National Signing Day, but never faxed his Letter of Intent to the Tigers; that left the door open for a change of heart, which Kouandjio has apparently had.

Yesterday, Cyrus Kouandjio picked Auburn in a televised commitment decision. Then he backed off, and seemed to be waffling between Auburn and Alabama. Now, it’s going to take some time for Kouandjio to come to a conclusion — and Iowa is back in the mix.

Kouandjio’s father tells the Tuscaloosa News that things are up in the air:

Devin Lucien, a four-star wide receiver from Encino, California, has announced he’ll join the UCLA Bruins as a member of their 2011 football recruiting class. Crespi High School’s all-time leading receiver, he’s ranked as the nation’s No. 22 receiver and the No. 21 player from Cali.

Lucien had narrowed his choices to some combination of Arizona State, Colorado, Miami, and Utah depending on who you asked, though he also took visits as far away as Kentucky. Utah appeared to be the longshot coming into signing day, but the six-foot-one, 190-pounder clearly has a thing for current and future Pac-12 schools.

In an abrupt departure from the usual oooh-he-switched-hats drama we’re usually treated to on National Signing Day, there’s a very different sort of circus brewing down in Louisiana, where Floyd Raven, a four-star cornerback from Reserve’s East St. John High School, had his letter of intent forged by his mother, who reportedly wanted him to attend Ole Miss:

Putting a crimp in her plans was the fact that her son was set on attending Texas A&M, where he faxed his real LOI today. Raven had gone back and forth between the two programs, and even had a brief dalliance with Michigan, but has received Houston Nutt’s blessing to head to the Aggies.

For more on the Raven rigamarole, visit SB Nation’s Red Cup Rebellion, where they’re understandably flummoxed, and I Am The 12th Man, who should be popping corks right about now, and keep up with all the announcement drama on our 2011 National Signing Day schedule page.

Jermauria Rasco, like most high school football stars in Louisiana, will stay home for his collegiate career: the defensive end from Evangel Christian in Shreveport has committed to play for Les Miles on this National Signing Day.

The Tigers prevailed in the skirmish for Rasco’s services despite a run at Rasco by Texas...

Rutgers has ebbed under Greg Schiano after a surge to the top of the Big East behind the efforts of Ray Rice, but the Scarlet Knights are making recruiting headway again, this time by securing the commitment of New Jersey defensive tackle Marquise Wright.

Our Rutgers blog, On the Banks, likes Wright’s potential a lot, but isn’t against switching his position:

Ohio State has a fantastic recent history with linebackers, and adding one of the nation’s best to their 2011 recruiting class will only help bolster that legacy: Richmond, Virginia linebacker Curtis Grant has committed to the Buckeyes.

Our Along the Olentangy had noted that Urban Meyer’s departure from Florida made it possible for Ohio State to swoop in on Grant.

6’3, 275 pound defensive tackle prospect and number three defensive tackle Gabe Wright has announced his commitment to the Auburn University. He did so after his high school teammate Isaiah Crowell unveiled his commitment to Georgia with a live bulldog puppy. His was nowhere near as cute, though it was personalized and premeditated.

In summary, Wright is yet another massive and massively quick defensive tackle from the Deep South. Wright already benches 400 pounds and has a huge upper body ideal for fighting off larger offensive linemen in the trenches. He’ll have to work on his lower body development a bit and therefore certainly has ample room to grow in that department. His conditioning is also a category he could improve in, but he is a defensive tackle so we’ll grade him on the curve of “fat but quick dudes who hate treadmills.”

Crowell fielded offers from Alabama, Georgia, Cal, Florida, Miami, USC, and Auburn over the course of his recruitment, but took official visits only with the Bulldogs and Crimson Tide. He currently tops our Signing Day Stunts Leaderboard thanks to OMG PUPPY LOOK LOOK: