1. Ah, recruiting is in the air, and it's wonderful.
Allow us please to wax poetic for a minute.
This past week marked the one-year anniversary of the sports world screeching to a halt because of COVID-19, and we're not sure why so much media content has been manufactured recreating and reminiscing about that point. Maybe in a decade or two, but let's put the pandemic in the rear view first.
A light at the end of the tunnel has come into sight, it feels fair to say. Sure there remain concerns and cautions, and the NCAA basketball tournament is sure to have its proverbial victims.
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Yet the NCAA has started planning for June 1 to end the seemingly interminable dead period, allowing for sanctioned in-person campus visits between prospects and college coaches.
Recruiting camps have slowly started popping back up, and this past weekend brought a pair of high-profile 7-on-7 tournaments to Georgia.
We traveled back and forth between Atlanta and Carrollton, Ga., through the weekend to gather intel and collect content on a handful of significant Clemson targets and candidates, which we begin rolling out in this edition and will expound upon in the coming days and weeks.
The 7-on-7 scene is its own world. One sponsor set up a free haircut station for attendants outside the field fences. A player adorned his safety helmet with huge ski goggles. You aren't somebody if you ain't wearing a track suit. And if you prefer sportsmanship over showmanship, you're better off staying in your own yard.
Like anything, the travel ball circuit has its pros and cons, depending on one's perspective.
But man, from this observer's spot, it was just encouraging to have a sense of recruiting normalcy return.
Rivals.com is planning to have its camps later this spring, and the NCAA brass is discussing protocols and standards whereby colleges might be allowed to hold their camps; the Dabo Swinney Camps usually occur during consecutive midweeks in early June.
Let's friggin' go ...
2. So much meat on the bone from the weekend.
Yet if we had to rank the takeaways, here's the one with which we'd start:
Irmo (S.C.) Dutch Fork four-star receiver Antonio Williams is really, really good.
