It's decision day for PJ Dean

Decision day has arrived for priority South Carolina defensive tackle target PJ Dean.

The Clemmons (N.C.) West Forsyth class of 2026 four-star prospect will announce his decision today at 3:30 among finalists South Carolina, Georgia, and Ohio State.

He took official visits to all three schools earlier this month.

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The 6-foot-3, 255-pounder’s recruitment has been an interesting one in that he was originally an offensive line target for Lonnie Teasley and Sam Serbay.

But a few months ago, Dean shifted to wanting to play defense, and that’s where Travian Robertson and the Gamecocks are recruiting him.

“The relationship and how comfortable everybody is. It’s really just a home, like really warm feeling,” Dean said following his South Carolina visit. “Like Coach Beamer, Coach T Rob, even when I was being recruited on the offensive line, Coach Teasley, Sam. It’s like the relationships there are just so genuine. They just show you genuine interest. They just show themselves as just genuine people, you know. It’s just like it’s real different from really anybody else right now.”

In addition to Robertson, Beamer has been personally recruiting Dean and has made it clear that he wanted him in the program, whether that was on offense or defense, where he’s now slated to play.

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“Every time I see Coach Beamer, it’s just—it’s always—he’s just telling me how much of a priority I am no matter what side of the ball I play,” Dean said. “When I broke it down to him, I was like, I may be looking at the defensive side of the ball, he let me know. He was like, ‘I don’t care.’ You know what I’m saying? He was like, ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ve seen your D-line film. We even think you’re good enough there. We’ve seen it.’

“And I was like, ‘All right.’ Just them knowing, they were really the first school to really put the D-line thing on notice for me. So it was really just like, just knowing that he brought that up—brought the attention to it, and he kind of opened my eyes to it.”

Even with the move into the defensive rankings, Dean is one of the top prospects in the country. On3 considers him the No. 45 overall prospect in the class and the No. 4 defensive tackle.

The On3 Industry Ranking considers Dean the No. 78 overall prospect and No. 5 defensive tackle in the class.

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