Premature as it is to celebrate verbal commitments three months before Signing Day, the Miami Hurricanes have had a nice recruiting run the past 48 hours and it deserves mention.
On Sunday morning Miami got a commitment from four-star Loganville, Georgia running back Storm Johnson and later in the day Belle Glade three-star athlete Greg Dent pledged his allegiance to the Canes. Tuesday morning it was Booker T. Washington four-star running back Eduardo Clements who decided to end the suspense and commit to ‘The U’.
Johnson is a bigger-bodied back who plans on enrolling early in January. He chose Miami from almost three dozen scholarship offers, other finalists being Penn State, Oregon, Kentucky and Michigan State.
Regarding Dent, he decided to follow Glades Central teammate TE Clive Walford to Coral Gables. Dent is slated to play cornerback for the Canes and committed after not ‘feeling the love’ after a recent visit to Florida State.
Clements’ pledge might be seen as a surprise to come, though rumors swirled for months that the Booker T. back was a silent commit. Back in April, the Herald’s Manny Navarro penned a piece where he questioned Clements favoring Georgia.
The UM beat writer talked of Miami coaches losing their stranglehold on local recruiting, yet a few months later Clements stuck with the hometown Canes – which should squash out any premature rumors about the Canes no longer being the program to beat in the Tri-County area. Some kids will wind up elsewhere, but for kids like Clements, it’s nothing more than flirtation and weighing out one’s options.
Take some recruiting trips, get out of your hometown and be the big fish in a little pond, regarding the hype that comes when visiting many smaller college towns.
Clements is Miami-bound regardless of the crop of running backs also signing on with the Canes next year; Darion Hall, Maurice Hagans and the recently committed Johnson. Unafraid of competition, Clements is a hometown kid with the mindset head coach Randy Shannon is looking for. Shannon talks about big time local kids from winning program, which Clements is.
Other Booker T. alum currently playing for the Canes, Clements’ former teammates Brandon Harris, Thearon Collier and Davon Johnson. Clements comes from good high school stock and will bring a can-do attitude to The U, like his former teammates.
A lot can happen over the next three months, but at 6-2 and with almost two dozen verbals ready to sign in February, things are indeed looking up for the Canes entering year four of The Shannon Era.