Carroll says all questions on Clowney have been answered - but one

Photos: Icon SMI

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Feb 07 14:49:06 GMT-04:00 2011

The nation’s No.1 prospect will make his decision on Feb. 14th, and with that in mind, South Pointe’s (Rock Hill) Jadeveon Clowney has stopped answering the phone and responding to text messages due to the overwhelming amount of attention paid to his pending decision.

That doesn’t mean, however, that he doesn’t make calls, and one of the people that he relies on is his former head coach at South Pointe, Bobby Carroll. Carroll left South Pointe recently to take the head job at York, but told TigerNet Monday afternoon that he hears from Clowney several times a day.

“I am a football coach, I have been a football coach for a long time, and when I die I will be a football coach,” Carroll said. “And the reason I still listen to Jadeveon and try to help him out is just because he is a great kid. I am his friend. And I want to help out wherever I can. But he doesn’t answer his phone anymore. Not even from people he wants to talk to. I don’t even call him. He calls me.”

Carroll said that part of the ways he can help Clowney is by letting him talk about things other than football and recruiting.

“No, we don’t really ever talk about it,” he said. “We talk about other things. I know people try to chase him down, and follow him to his basketball games, and they are always posting stuff on Facebook. But the great thing about Facebook is that he doesn’t have to read it, or talk to it. He doesn’t even read that stuff.

“But it’s like I told someone that tried to call me and tried to pry a story out of me about Clowney. I said ‘what else you can you say?’ Every question has been asked and every question has been answered but one. And that question will be answered next week, and the answer is South Carolina, Clemson or Alabama, in no particular order.”

Carroll said that the reason Clowney is taking so long with his decision is due to the fact that he has developed relationships with all of the finalists.

“He has done stuff through all of this that we can’t even fathom,” he said. “He is a social person, and he truly enjoys all of the relationships he has made. He has met coaches throughout the country, and at the end of the day, he’s not really excited to tell a particular coach he’s built a relationship with that ‘hey, I’m not coming there.’ It’s been hard on him.”

I asked Carroll if it was Clowney’s relationship with Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney that had allowed the Tigers to make a late surge, and he said that was only part of the reason.

“That is probably part of it. But I think most of his rapport with Clemson is because of the NFL defensive linemen that have gone to Clemson, with first round picks. I think that reputation really has a lot to do with it.”