South Carolina football recruiting: Spurs Up Cookout preview

A key recruiting event is coming up tomorrow for South Carolina: the Spurs Up Cookout. Many of the Gamecocks’ major targets and a number of commits will be gathering in Columbia in the morning for the festivities, and if things break the way Will Muschamp wants them to break, he’ll end the day with a few more commitments and having moved up the list of many of the players that have not pledged.

The big names that will be there are Brad Johnson, MJ Webb, OrTre Smith, Dakereon Joyner, Xavier Thomas (maybe), and Jamyest Williams. The Gamecocks will look to get into the conversation with a few other players from the 2018 cycle besides Joyner; namely Dax Hollifield (the #2 ILB in his class). Thomas was set to visit today, but work kept him from making the drive over from Florence to Columbia. He tweeted that he would "try to make it for the cookout".

Commitment watch?

Zay Brown might be a player to keep an eye on. He mentioned a few weeks ago that he would make his commitment public on July 23, which turns out to be tomorrow (Saturday). Brown was the player that tweeted #SpursUp along with Will Muschamp last month but later deleted it, which raised some eyebrows and heated up the speculation that it was him who was the latest to pledge.

Another one to possibly put on commitment watch is Sherrod Greene. He tweeted this out early Friday evening. Is a pledge on the horizon during the cookout?

One name that’s not on the list is TJ Moore. Moore will choose between the Gamecocks, North Carolina, N.C. State, and Tennessee on August 1. One player who originally was not set to be there, TJ Moore, will indeed be at the cookout.

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There’s no doubt that Muschamp and the staff will be working many of the players I mentioned - particularly Smith, Williams, Thomas, and Joyner - extremely hard all day long during the cookout. Williams and Smith will have been coming off a visit to Clemson’s All In Cookout, where they no doubt heard from Dabo Swinney much of what they are set to hear from Muschamp in Columbia. As the time draws near for them to commit (Smith has set a date for September 11), the staff will be turning up the heat and putting on the full court press to keep these two from heading Upstate. The same can be said for Joyner, although he will commit next year (June 18, 2017).

Full list of attendees

Uncommitted prospects (2017 unless otherwise noted)

Johnathan Abram (JUCO)

Trajan Bandy

Zay Brown

Matthew Butler

Kaymen Cureton

Sherrod Greene

Demarcus Gregory (2018)

Dax Hollifield (2018)

Brad Johnson

Dakereon Joyner (2018)

Emmanuel McNeil

Cain McWilliams Did not attend

Jacoby Pinckney (2019)

Adonicas Sanders

OrTre Smith

Master Teague (2018)

Chad Terrell

M.J. Webb

Jamyest Williams

Committed prospects

Davonne Bowen

Summie Carlay

Eric Douglas

Will Register

Eldridge Thompson

Jay Urich