National recruiting expert explains what adding Jordan Burch means for Gamecocks
ESPN personality Tom Luginbill was somewhat critical of the delay that had South Carolina five-star commit Jordan Burch signing more than 24 hours after South Carolina football’s 2020 recruiting class was supposed to be wrapped up.
But the former Arena League and XFL coach had little doubt what the addition would mean for the Gamecocks program.
“It’s important for a couple of reasons,” Luginbill said. “No. 1, he’s a local kid. No. 2, he is a high-profile national recruit at a premium position — a position everyone is trying to get, a defensive lineman. And then I think No. 3, it coincides with the completion of their football operations building, the enhancements and the investment that they’ve made in football to kind of catch up with their competitors in the conference.
“You’d like to see the fruits of that labor pay off by being able to find the better players and keeping them home because you made the investment in other areas.”
He said he thought Will Muschamp and his staff did about all they could to reel in the five-star. For much of Thursday, it seemed highly uncertain when that would pay off.
Burch’s recruitment was a strange one throughout with him staying radio silent for months on end and not taking much step to publicly control his narrative. He pulled off a surprise commitment to the Gamecocks at the start of the early signing period in December and also went through a ceremony this week, but each time Muschamp had to go to his signing day press conference unable to talk about Burch because his letter of intent was not yet in.
With Burch, the No. 8 recruit in the country, in place, the 22-man newcomer class is locked in, plus a couple of transfers and likely some August enrollees whose scholarships will count toward the 2021 class. Ten players are already on campus and most will go through spring ball.
The Gamecocks will need just about everything going their way as they come off a 4-8 season with a fourth-year head coach. Last season was a difficult one, and another poor record likely causes even more issues.
But Luginbill sees some momentum coming off this class and how it was built.
“He understands that they’ve got to play better and win more games,” Luginbill said. “I do know that they had injury history. They had a lot of bad things go their way.
“I do believe that, again, the investment that they’ve made as a university ... it’s a good recruiting class. You go back to when the building was completed, and you look at how immediately it seemed to help in recruiting as far as kids coming in in the spring and making verbal commitments, things of that nature. Now, you’ve gotta start getting that momentum, turning it into wins so you’re making progress as a program. And nobody knows that more so than Will Muschamp.”
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 8:15 AM with the headline "National recruiting expert explains what adding Jordan Burch means for Gamecocks."
