NC State’s defense has four players from the Palmetto State on its two-deep depth chart for the season opener against South Carolina, and none came closer to being on the other sideline this Saturday than redshirt freshman corner James Valdez.
South Carolina was Valdez’s first offer.
“I was going to commit, actually,” noted Valdez, a native of Orangeburg, S.C.
That changed when Valdez took a visit to NC State, but until that point there was an effort from those in Valdez’s community to have him playing for the Gamecocks.
“That was 30 minutes from my house, so of course everybody wanted me to go there,” Valdez added. “But they also wanted the best for me.”
Valdez is an exception to the rule of thumb when it comes to recruiting the state of South Carolina. Whereas many NC State and North Carolina football coaches have preached for years about building a fence around its state borders in recruiting, Clemson and South Carolina have a long-established wall with a sturdy foundation in its state.
If you are a top player in the state with an offer from Clemson or South Carolina, odds are good you are signing with one of those programs.
“It’s just Clemson or South Carolina,” Valdez said. “That’s pretty much what you grow up on. Your parents are either Clemson fans or Gamecock fans.”
For most of the Palmetto State natives on NC State’s roster, their connections run stronger with South Carolina’s program. Sophomore corner Nick McCloud, a likely starter on Saturday, freely admitted that at one point he wanted an offer from South Carolina.
The Rock Hill native comes from an area of the state that has produced some of South Carolina’s best players in recent history, including the No. 1 overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft in defensive end Jadeveon Clowney and 2016 Pro Bowl corner Stephon Gilmore, both of whom McCloud personally knows.
McCloud added there are “too many [players] to count” that he is familiar with on the current South Carolina roster.
Junior reserve nickel and special teams ace Freddie Phillips Jr. grew up in Pelion, which is about 25 minutes from South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium. He considers Gamecocks redshirt junior tight end K.C. Crosby a “big brother figure.”
When Steve Spurrier was the coach, Phillips attended several games, and Spurrier’s son, Steve Spurrier Jr., recruited Phillips as a receiver, but an offer never came.
“That’s a little redemption time,” Phillips said about Saturday.
That said, Phillips is not convinced he would have jumped on a South Carolina offer had it come, noting it might have been actually too close to home. He knows, though, that for many that’s not a factor.
“South Carolina is real small,” Phillips said. “It usually got something to do with their relatives playing there before them and stuff like that. I never had any relatives playing college football so that wasn’t a factor in my decision.”
Valdez speculated that perhaps South Carolina recruits simply don’t want to go too far from home or want their parents to watch all their games. Junior defensive tackle Eurndraus Bryant, a native of Charleston, concurred.
“For me, I was willing to go anywhere,” Bryant said. “NC State came at me hard so I came here, and I love it here.
“Some people don’t like to step out of their comfort zone,” he added. “They got the good support system back home.”
Bryant fully understands the pull of an in-state school in South Carolina. Bryant’s girlfriend is the sister of four-star quarterback Dakereon Joyner from Bryant’s old high school Fort Dorchester, and Joyner was choosing last spring between NC State and South Carolina. He ended up picking the Gamecocks.
Come Saturday, all the nostalgia of playing South Carolina will go away when it is time to kick off, the players insisted.
“Once we step on the field, I don’t know anybody,” Phillips said. “I am not going to know a face out there, just numbers on the jersey.”
“It’s personal because I feel like I should’ve gotten the offer,” McCloud added. “But at the end of the day, I feel like I have to do my job for my team.”
“It’ll be no different,” Bryant concluded. “We have to play as a team.
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