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4-star class of 2017 QB to graduate early and join South Carolina

nick bromberg
College football and motorsports writer

South Carolina will get the services of quarterback Jake Bentley a year early.

Bentley, a four-star quarterback in the class of 2017, announced on Twitter Wednesday morning that he could graduate early from high school. Since he can complete his high school coursework a year early, he'll be joining South Carolina over the summer.

It's not uncommon for a high-profile recruit (especially a quarterback, who has to learn all facets of a playbook) to graduate early from high school. But that graduation usually happens in January, not a full year ahead of schedule.

Bentley told The State that he was able to do this because of his classwork dating back to middle school.

“It’s been a long process getting approval from the SEC and the NCAA and South Carolina. It’s been kind of a long deal, but we got confirmation about a week ago, and everything’s good,” Bentley told The State. “In South Carolina I took a lot of high school courses in middle school so I was able to acquire a lot more course credits than the normal student.”

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Bentley also has family reasons to join the Gamecocks early. His dad, Bobby is a former assistant at Auburn who joined South Carolina's coaching staff this offseason when the Gamecocks hired Will Muschamp as their head coach. Muschamp spent 2015 as Auburn's defensive coordinator. Bobby Bentley is South Carolina's running backs coach.

“It’ll be great that we’ll all be close,” Bentley said. “My little brother is all excited because he can watch dad and brother at the same time. My mom said she’s still not washing my clothes for me, though.”

Jake Bentley is considered the No. 13 pro-style quarterback in the class of 2017 according to Rivals and the No. 10 prospect in the state of Alabama. He chose South Carolina over six other SEC schools including Alabama and Auburn.

He'll compete for a starting job at South Carolina with Perry Orth, Lorenzo Nunez and others.

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For more South Carolina news, visit GamecockCentral.com.

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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!