Top-50 DL Kelby Collins sets South Carolina official visit
Gardendale (Ala.) defensive lineman Kelby Collins visited South Carolina for the first time last month. A week ago, he included the Gamecocks in his top five, and on Tuesday he locked in an official visit with them for next month.
Collins is the No. 50 overall prospect in the 2023 class, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He ranks as the nation’s No. 7 defensive lineman and the No. 8 junior in the state of Alabama.
The 6-foot-5, 278-pounder will head to Columbia June 10-12 for his first official visit. He has another locked in with Alabama, which will take place in early December.
New South Carolina staff making an impression on Kelby Collins
Collins is being recruited to South Carolina by defensive line coach Jimmy Lindsey, and Gamecock Central previously reported that the Gamecocks were in the mix following his unofficial visit on Easter.
“I like the way Coach (Shane) Beamer has changed the program,” Collins told On3’s Hayes Fawcett. “I feel like they can be a Top 10 program if they bring in players like me. Coach has something special going on, and Coach Lindsey has a real plan for me the way he wants to use me as an edge rusher.”
According to the On3 Recruiting Prediction Machine (RPM), Alabama is currently the overwhelming favorite for Collins. It gives the Crimson Tide a 94.5 percent chance of landing him. Along with South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma made Collins’ top five list.
The On3 RPM was released to the public in December. On3’s engineering group teamed up with Spiny.ai to create the industry’s first algorithm and machine learning-based product to predict where athletes will attend college.
It factors in machine learning, expert predictions, social sentiment, visits, and historical trends. However, expert predictions are still a big piece of the RPM equation.