This week in recruiting: Making a case for each of Caleb Williams’ finalists

The games may only be played from late August to early January, but college football season never ends.

Competition manifests itself every day between coaches when it comes to recruiting, where programs are doing everything to beat their competitors to set themselves up for future success.

That is why, every week, you won’t want to miss “This Week In Recruiting,” a weekly report of the most interesting things happening on the trail.

The jewel of the 2021 recruiting class has his final 5

Caleb Williams (above) is the most important player in the 2021 class. That’s what being a quarterback does to your value once you’ve proven to be a top-10 talent: You shoot right up to the top.

Rated the consensus No. 1 quarterback and the No. 5 overall prospect in the 2021 recruiting class, Williams is considered a program-altering talent. The product of Washington (D.C.) Gonzaga College High cut his list to five schools Monday: Clemson, LSU, Penn State, Maryland and Oklahoma.

Final 5.
Clemson University #ALLIN
Louisiana State University#GeauxTigers
University of Maryland#Terps
Penn State university#WeAre
University of Oklahoma #BoomerSooner pic.twitter.com/E5U3pMPrGn

— Caleb Williams (@CALEBcsw) March 23, 2020

Williams took recent visits to Oklahoma and Clemson, so as he continues into the summer months, the battle for these programs will be to get him on campus for an official visit. That, of course, is tricky because recruiting is shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic, and there’s no timeline for when things will be back up and running.

All five programs have a nice sales pitch.

• Clemson: Trevor Lawrence, one of the best quarterbacks in college football the past two seasons, will be a junior this season and will be gone by the time Williams enrolls. That means Williams can immediately compete with 2020 signee D.J. Uiagalelei to be the face of Clemson football, joining the absolute stacked recruiting classes Dabo Swinney has been putting together. There’s no better place to be than Clemson right now.

• LSU: Joe Burrow just completed perhaps the best individual season a quarterback has had in college football history. He led LSU to the national title, won the Heisman and is poised to be the top pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. LSU is the place if you want to duplicate that.

• Maryland: Maryland hasn’t come close to accomplishing what the other teams on this list have done, but this is a new era of Terrapins football. Coach Mike Locksley shocked the world when he unexpectedly flipped five-star wide receiver Rakim Jarrett of Washington (D.C.) St. John’s during the early signing period of the 2020 cycle, and he wants to shock the world again. Jarrett presumably would love to team up with a five-star quarterback. Maryland wants Williams to stay home and change the trajectory of the program.

• Oklahoma: Since Lincoln Riley took over as coach, Oklahoma has been a quarterback factory, from Baker Mayfield to Kyler Murray to Jalen Hurts. Yes, all three transferred into the program, but there are two Heisman winners and a Heisman runner-up in that group. Former five-star prospect Spencer Rattler is expected to take over for the Sooners, but quarterbacks who play for Riley put up big numbers.

• Penn State: Penn State is close to being elite. Williams could play relatively close to home in the Big Ten, play in a huge stadium in front of a rabid fan base and be the final piece missing to get the Nittany Lions into the College Football Playoff.

Williams has everything he could ask for in his list of finalists. Watching him pick his school will be one of the more intriguing storylines to track in recruiting this cycle.

Being a recruit during Coronavirus

Four-star cornerback Jaylin Davies of perennial power Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei released a top seven this week that consists of Alabama, Arizona State, Ohio State, Texas, UCLA, USC and Washington. Had the Coronavirus not shut down recruiting visits, it’s likely that Davies would be further along than simply a top seven. It may have been a final three at this point.

“I planned to narrow it down after visiting certain school’s this spring,” Davies told The Athletic. “I’m entering my senior season and I didn’t want to entertain schools I wasn’t serious about. But since the virus, I have just been able to do my top seven. … The plan is to know where I am going before my senior season.”

That’s a nice plan. It may not be realistic.

Take Ohio State, for example.

“I really wanted to visit Ohio State since they’ve been recruiting me since day one and they’re B.I.A. (Best in America) and DBU, but now I have to wait,” Davies said. “I’m open to leave home, especially if it feels right. I FaceTime with (cornerbacks coach) Kerry Coombs every other day. I really like Ohio State, but I haven’t been. Hopefully this virus thing lifts before my senior season starts.”

Though coaches are hitting the phones and putting in time for video chats, this recruiting stoppage is having a major impact on prospects who would have otherwise been officially visiting schools this spring.

A consensus national top-125 prospect and one of the top-15 corners in the nation, Davies had everything planned out. He had taken a visit to USC and was scheduled to go to UCLA when everything started getting cancelled. Davies said he was going to visit Arizona State on March 20, which is his birthday, and was planning to visit Ohio State on April 11 before heading up to Washington on April 24. All of those visits have been canceled.

Davies would like to commit by the start of summer; he doesn’t know if that’s possible anymore.

He’s been to USC and UCLA — not surprising, given he lives in the L.A. suburbs — as well as Arizona State and Alabama.

“So when all of this passes,” Davies said, “the visit to Ohio is going to be my priority. … The perfect scenario for me is that while visiting Ohio State it is everything I think it is. I already get along with the coaching staff, and I get a really good vibe from them.”

Greg Schiano and his staff are making baby steps — but steps nonetheless — in their quest to keep top New Jersey prospects at home. (Rich Graessle / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Rutgers making headway in New Jersey

Is Rutgers on fire? Well, kind of.

Greg Schiano and his staff picked up four commitments in the past week, with three coming from New Jersey and one from Pennsylvania. The most recent commitment is three-star athlete Jordan Thompson of Morris Plains (N.J.) Parsippany Hills; he is the consensus No. 499 prospect in the country.

That commitment wouldn’t usually turn heads, but consider this: Rutgers has signed just seven top-500 players in the past six recruiting classes.

Rutgers has three players commitments from national top-520 players in the 2021 class, which is a major step in the early stages of the second Schiano era. As things stand right now, Schiano has Rutgers ranked No. 20 in the country in the composite team rankings. That’s not likely to hold, but the thing that makes Schiano special for Rutgers is this: Nobody is going to spend more time in the New Jersey high school hallways than Schiano and his staff. The high school coaches love him, and Schiano has a genuine desire to turn Rutgers around with New Jersey talent.

This is going to be about baby steps. Maybe he’ll land five top-500 players in this year’s class. Then maybe he’ll land a few four-star prospects from New Jersey in 2022 as he attempts to make Rutgers competitive in the Big Ten.

Right now, Rutgers is battling Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State and many others in New Jersey. The Scarlet Knights aren’t going to win the high-profile battles yet, but as results like this keep coming in, it becomes more and more likely to happen down the line.

Odds and ends

• Four-star cornerback Hunter Washington of Katy (Texas) High, in the Houston suburbs, announced his top 10 schools: In alphabetical order, they are Arizona State, Arkansas, Florida State, LSU, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Ohio State, Texas, TCU and Virginia Tech. Rated the consensus No. 15 cornerback in the class and a national top-200 prospect overall, Washington took unofficial visits to Ole Miss, Oklahoma and Arkansas before the coronavirus put a stop to recruiting. He was scheduled to visit Ohio State this weekend.

• Four-star wide receiver Quaydarius Davis of Dallas Skyline, a national top-110 prospect, released his final six: SMU, LSU, Florida, USC, Oklahoma State and Texas. He’s one of the top-20 receivers in the 2021 class.

• Georgia received a commitment from four-star defensive end Jonathan Jefferson of Douglasville (Ga.) Douglas County, a national top-150 prospect, on Monday. Jefferson also had offers from, among others, Alabama, Arizona State, Auburn, Michigan, Notre Dame and Oregon. Jefferson became Georgia’s fourth pledge in its 2021 class, which is anchored by five-star quarterback commit Brock Vandagriff of Bogart (Ga.) Prince Avenue Christian School.

• Three-star quarterback Kaiya Sheron of Somerset (Ky.) High committed to Kentucky on Monday. Sheron is rated the No. 28 pro-style quarterback in the 2021 class. Sheron, who led his high school to the Kentucky state Class 2A title last fall, is UK’s fourth commitment.

(Top photo of Caleb Williams: Tasos Katopodis for The Washington Post via Getty Images)