South Carolina makes Top 5 for four-star DL Kelby Collins
Gardendale (Ala.) class of 2023 four-star defensive lineman Kelby Collins visited the South Carolina football program last month and he must have liked what he saw while in Columbia.
The 6-foot-5, 278-pound blue-chipper included the Gamecocks in his Top 5 on Tuesday with Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma and Florida also making the list.
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.”
Alabama is the projected favorite to land Collins in the On3 RPM — which uses predictions from industry experts, visit data, social media sentiment and historical outcomes on an AI platform to project the chances a player will attend a particular school — with a 91.9 percent chance to land the talented prospect.
The On3 Consensus – a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies – ranks Collins as the No. 7 defensive lineman and No. 50 overall prospect in his class. He’s considered the No. 8 prospect in Alabama.
According to Gardendale coach Chad Eads, Collins was “made” to play the defensive line.
“He’s a guy who started halfway through his freshman year,” Eads told AL.com. “We try to avoid that here, but we just couldn’t keep him off the field. He’s already really improved with his pass rush and the way he uses his hands. His quickness at the line of scrimmage is hard to match. You just don’t see that every day. There are not many that can rush a quarterback and stuff a run like he can. He’s also a very good kid and a good student. It’s been fun going through the process with him.”
South Carolina landed its first public pledge of the 2023 class on Sunday when Washington (D.C.) St. John’s three-star safety Zahbari Sandy committed to the Gamecocks.
