Chad Simmons: Mike Matthews is 'one of the top athletes' in the country

The start of Lilburn (Ga.) Parkview four-star athlete Mike Matthews‘ junior season kicked off Wednesday in the Corky Kell Classic against Johns Creek. He recording two touchdowns and an interception in Parkview’s win, demonstrating the skills that have made him one of the top recruits in the 2024 cycle.

In attendance at the game was On3 Director of Recruiting Chad Simmons. During halftime, he spoke with Peachtree TV about what he saw from Matthews.

“I would say Mike Matthews has performed very well for Parkview here,” Simmons said. “2024 kid, one of the top athletes probably out there in the country. A top-100 kid for us on On3.”

Matthews is the No. 23 overall prospect and No. 3 athlete in the 2024 On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He is also the No. 3 player in Georgia.

He has received 30 offers from top programs including Clemson, Georgia, Notre Dame and USC. Before kickoff, he was photographed wearing USC gloves.

According the On3 Recruiting Prediction Machine, it is a close race between multiple programs for Matthews’ commitment. Currently, Clemson has the highest odds for Matthews at 30.8%.

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RPM was released to the public in December. The On3 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, social sentiment, visits and historical trends. However, expert predictions are still a big piece of the RPM equation.

In addition to Matthews, Simmons noticed two players to watch. They were Lilburn (Ga.) Parkview four-star cornerback Jalyn Crawford, a top-175 prospect in the On3 Consensus, and Atlanta (Ga.) Parkview athlete Zelus Hicks, a member of the class of 2026.

Matthews has an On3 NIL Valuation of $104K. The On3 NIL Valuation is an index that looks to set the standard market value for both high school and college-level athletes. The NIL valuation does not act as a tracker of the value of NIL deals an athlete has completed to date. It rather signifies an athlete’s value at a certain moment in time.