Gamecocks were ‘definitely late’ offering this in-state recruit. Can they make it up?

Had the scholarship offer come a little earlier in the process, rather than seven weeks into his senior season, this could’ve been a different story.

But recent interviews with four-star 2024 wide receiver recruit Braylon Staley and his father make one thing clear.

Even though Staley, a Tennessee commit, is going to give his hometown school a shot, the Gamecocks’ delay in offering him has put them at a disadvantage.

Staley, a senior at Storm Thurmond High School, ranks as the No. 21 overall receiver and No. 150 overall recruit regardless of position in the 247Sports Composite rankings for the 2024 class.

That metric also ranks him as the No. 3 recruit in the state of South Carolina.

But USC didn’t offer Staley a scholarship until Oct. 4, about three months after he verbally committed to Tennessee, one of South Carolina’s SEC rivals.

Staley, in an Oct. 15 interview with GoVols247, a Tennessee website, said the Gamecocks’ offer “came a little late” but he’d still consider them. He added in an Oct. 13 interview with TheBigSpur that he’s “always been looking into” USC, given its proximity to him and its reputation as an in-state school.

“Coaches said they take a little time on some in-state guys, so I listened to the great conversation they had with me,” Staley, who plays about an hour from Columbia, told the website. “It was a late offer, but it’s still the home team.”

Brian Staley, Braylon Staley’s father, told SportsTalkSC on Oct. 19 that his son’s South Carolina offer is “definitely an offer to be excited for” but Tennessee’s consistency and loyalty have stood out in the recruiting process.

Coach Josh Heupel and his staff have been talking with the Staley family since last October, around the time he started picking up his first Power Five offers. The Volunteers offered Staley a scholarship in February 2023, and he plans to attend three home games in Knoxville this season.

“They’ve been there for a while, and he’s built a relationship with the entire staff and everybody that’s there,” Brian Staley said. “When I see him now talking about Tennessee, he lights up. With Carolina coming in kind of late, I mean, it’s late. It is definitely late. Still trying to feel them out at the same time. It’s a work in progress.”

USC’s offer to Staley, who is also a three-time track and field champion, comes as he puts together an excellent senior season and continues to rise in the recruiting rankings.

In his first season at Storm Thurmond after three seasons at Aiken High School, where he was an all-state selection as a junior, Staley has caught 49 passes for 853 yards and 10 touchdowns, good for 94.8 yards per game.

The 6-foot-1, 180-pound senior has four games of 100-plus receiving yards and a touchdown catch in seven of nine games for the Rebels, who are 7-2.

Can USC flip Braylon Staley?

Amid Staley’s production and rise in big-time offers — his recruiting finalists in June were Clemson, Miami, Tennessee and UNC — he’s jumped nearly 200 spots in the Top247 rankings, from No. 328 to No. 132 in the Class of 2024, over the last year.

Staley was a Clemson lean and had a number of formal recruiting predictions for him to choose the Tigers entering the summer. But interest fizzled there on both sides after Clemson got commitments from five-star Bryant Wesco and four-star TJ Moore in early June, filling up the two scholarships it had reserved for receivers.

Staley chose Tennessee on June 30, saying at the time of his commitment that the Vols “felt like a family to me” from his first visit and he had an early “gut feeling” Tennessee was the spot for him. Tennessee was 11-2 in 2022 under Heupel, marking its first 10-win season since 2003, and beat Clemson in the Orange Bowl.

The Volunteers are ranked No. 21 in this week’s AP Top 25 at 5-2 and 2-2 in the SEC. USC (2-45, 1-4 SEC) has already flipped one Tennessee wide receiver commit this cycle (four-star receiver Mazeo Bennett of Greenville High School).

Bennett remains USC’s only 2024 receiver commit to date.

Staley said coach Shane Beamer, offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains and wide receivers coach Justin Stepp (his lead recruiter) have been recruiting him heavily over the last few weeks with a consistent message: “We want you.”

“They want me bad, so I’m looking into it,” he told TheBigSpur of the Gamecocks, who hold commitments from the top three players in the state (OT Josiah Thompson, OT Kam Pringle and WR Bennett) and five of the top seven.

But the Gamecocks, by all accounts, appear to be fighting an uphill battle.

Staley has already visited Knoxville for two games and will be back in Neyland Stadium for the team’s Nov. 18 game against Georgia. He said he’s “pretty locked in right now” on his commitment and plans to sign during the early period and enroll early at Tennessee in January.

As for Staley making a South Carolina visit, which would be an obvious next step for USC to further recruit him and set up a potential flip down the stretch?

“We haven’t discussed anything right now as far as Carolina and going to a game,” Brian Staley, a Strom Thurmond assistant coach, told SportsTalkSC. “We may do that sometime this week. We just haven’t had the chance to dig into it real deeply as of yet. We haven’t had time to sit down and talk about it. He hasn’t brought it up.”