Biggest recruiting hotbeds: South Carolina

EDITOR’S NOTE: In an 11-part series, Saturday Down South contributor Gary Laney looks at the states in the SEC and what areas in those states produce the most players, per capita. The method was to count players who have earned at least a four-star rating from 247Sports’ composite rankings, because that ranking takes into account the rankings of all the recruiting services. We then calculate how many of these blue chip recruits each metro area has produced per capita over a five-year period from 2012-16. At the end, we’ll rank the 10 biggest hotbeds in SEC country in per capita player production.

Is South Carolina a Gamecock state or a Clemson Tiger state?

The answer is probably neither.

Looking at the span of the last five years, South Carolina has had the edge in landing the players deemed to be the most talented in the state, taking 11 to Clemson’s eight with seven others rated four-stars or higher in the 247Sports composite index choosing to go elsewhere.

But the truth is, for as many good athletes as one may think there are in South Carolina, player production has not been great. The state has had 32 players rated four-stars or higher in the last five recruiting cycles, a little more than half of the 57 that Alabama, a state with roughly the same population, produced in the same time frame.

South Carolina is somewhere between the hotbeds like Alabama and Louisiana, and the “import” schools like Missouri and Arkansas. However, unlike Missouri and Arkansas, Dabo Swinney and Steve Spurrier (and now Will Muschamp) have to split the players.

So it’s remarkable that both programs have been contenders in their conferences, and Clemson played for a national championship last year. Or maybe it’s a sign that players from the Palmetto State are a little underrated.

Here’s how the player production breaks down:

Note: sorted by per capita production (the “Rural” category was left for last):

*- Augusta and Charlotte include only the parts of the metro areas located in South Carolina.

Three things to know

1. Coastal domination: If you’re looking for football players, South Carolina might be a fun place to recruit. The most productive metro area for players is around Charleston, the coastal city that has produced six four-star prospects from its metro area in the last five years. The Low Country area of Beaufort/Hilton Head has added a couple more in a metro of under 200,000. Driving the coast will yield you some pretty good prospects.
2. Look in the country: South Carolina lacks a million-person metropolitan area and has a lot of rural areas that produce a lot of players. Of the 32 top-tier prospects, 10 come from the tiny towns outside the metro. That’s amazing, considering that only about 600,000 of the state’s 4.8 million people live outside the metros.
3. Top player curse: Shaq Roland, the state’s top player in 2012, quit the South Carolina team after the 2014 season and his career prematurely ended. The top player in 2013, Tramel Terry, washed out at Georgia and now plays at FCS power Jacksonville State. The top 2014 player, Christian Miller, is still trying to find a niche at Alabama. It doesn’t seem like being the top player out of South Carolina has necessarily been a good omen for a player’s future. But don’t let that fool you. Right behind Terry in the 2013 class was Mike Williams, who has become a possible future first-round draft pick for Clemson at wide receiver.

Program to know

Gaffney is a town of just over 12,000 people in rural north central South Carolina, but it’s also a perennial championship contender and the producer of two four-star players in the last five years: Quinshad Davis (North Carolina, now the Detroit Lions) in 2012 and Shaq Davidson (South Carolina, now Jacksonville State) in 2014.