By Hale McGranahan.
It’s time to pump the breaks, or at least give them a good, firm tap.
On Monday afternoon, ESPN sports business reporter Darren Rovell sent the sports social media world into a tizzy when he tweeted that Rivals is now tracking middle school football prospects.
Rovell included screen shots of the profiles for a pair of pre-teen prospects from the class of 2021: Tyson Thornton, a 5-11, 170-pound running back from Massachusetts and Daron Bryden, a 5-2, 105-pound quarterback from Connecticut.
It wouldn’t be unfair to suggest that we’re setting a bit of a double-standard.
TheClemsonInsider competitively covers Clemson football, basketball and baseball recruiting. We take pride in our work and aren’t shy about trying to do it better than any of the other sites that seek out your clicks and/or subscription dollars.
And we’re not afraid to write about guys who are just a few years older than those 2021 kids. Quarterback Kereon Joyner, linebacker Dax Hollifield and linebacker Teradja Mitchell, all of whom are 2018 prospects, have been featured on TCI over the last four months.
Shoot, a few years ago at another site, a story was written about an eighth-grade point guard from Columbia by the name of Seventh Woods. But at least he had already participated in Brad Brownell’s elite prospect camp and was running on the AAU circuit with a team full of rising seniors.
So where should the line be drawn?
Like Woods was back then, Joyner, Hollifield and Mitchell are definitely on Clemson’s recruiting radar. Joyner was an unofficial guest for multiple games last fall while the other two recently added offers from the Tigers.
That’s a decent place to start, but it’s still kind of grey. Let’s all just hope that Dabo Swinney doesn’t decide to offer any middle schoolers.
When and if he does, rest assured (or not) that TCI will be all over the story.