The best prep football player in the state of Tennessee has decided to make Los Angeles his home in 2013. As one of the top cornerbacks in the country, Jalen Ramsey gave his verbal commitment to the University of Southern California Trojans. With that commit, the men of Troy now have the #1 recruiting class in the nation (source - Rivals).
Ramsey is the 15th commit for the 2013 season after star defensive tackle Eddie Vanderdoes committed near the end of last week (source - ESPN). A couple of things jumped out about this latest recruiting news. First, even though USC is on probation and as such has 10 less scholarships to offer, they still have been able to sit atop the recruiting ladder (by the way, the Trojans are also #1 on 247 Sports). Second, grabbing Ramsey out of Tennessee where head coach Lane Kiffin is hated was a stroke of genius.
USC vs Vandy
Ramsey is 6' 190 pounds and plays for Brentwood Academy in Nashville, Tennessee. That's the same city that is home to Vanderbilt who was Ramsey's other final choice along with Washington. But in the end, it came down to academics, networking and bonding with future teammates.
Said Ramsey: "It was very tough for me. It was a long process. Vanderbilt is a great school. It's like USC in a lot of ways for how prestigious it is the academics and the networking and things like that. It really came down to my second visit to USC." (Source - ESPN) And he added: "When I was at the Rivals event and saw all the USC guys working as hard as they did and recruiting me to come with them was when I started to feel like USC was going to be the place." (Source - Rivals)
The only down side to USC snagging these 15 top-notch players is the fact they can't make many moves from this point on. They can only recruit up to three more students so they will be quite choosy here on out. Also, everyone on the current Trojan roster had better keep their nose clean because any excuse the coaching staff is offered ... well, let's just say the coaches may be more than willing to boot players off the team. Scholarships at USC are at a premium.
Sources - Yahoo! Sports, University of Southern California
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Daryle lived in Los Angeles Ca. most of his life and has been a longtime fan of USC and the Pac-12, having closely followed the Trojans since he was just a youngster. Fight On!
