Best Available: Ten cornerbacks still on the board
Nearly 75 percent of the Rivals250 in the class of 2019 were committed to college programs entering their senior year. That leaves a very small pool of potential prospects as programs gear up for the Early Signing Period, which starts on Dec. 19. This week we take a position-by-position look at the top prospects still on the board.
BEST AVAILABLE: QB | RB | WR | TE | OT | OG | C | DE | DT | LB
The top five cornerback prospects in 2019 are off the board, but the position is deep in this class and there are still plenty of good players available. Stevenson is the highest-ranked available, and he saw his stock shoot up over the off-season with strong performances at events like the Rivals100 Five-Star Challenge presented by adidas. Stevenson has yet to take any of his official visits and is likely to take this recruitment into the winter, but Georgia and Miami are two strong contenders.
The state of California is no stranger to defensive back talent, and Rutherford is the latest in a long line of top-flight corners to come out of the Golden State. Tall for the position at 6-foot-2, Rutherford can stay on the outside because of his fluidity and change of direction quickness. September has proven to be a busy month in Rutherford’s recruitment. His first official visit went to Notre Dame for its home opener, and he has trips scheduled to Colorado and Oregon the next two weekends.
Williams has heard throughout his prep career that he is undersized, and that has only served to motivate the Rivals100 prospect. He is one of the most lockdown cover corners in this class, but will have to miss his senior season after tearing an ACL in his season opener. Williams used his first official visit to see Louisville in the spring. He has official visits this month planned with Oregon and Notre Dame, while USC and Utah are also serious players in his recruitment.
Elam is a popular name in Gainesville, Fla., and the Gators have long been considered the favorite to end up with this commitment. The nephew of former Florida safety Matt Elam, Kaiir has done nothing do discourage that sentiment, and was back in The Swamp for the Gators' SEC opener last weekend. But, Elam is also not in any rush to decide and looks likely to take this recruitment out several more months. His size and playmaking ability are attractive to programs across the country.
Bush's recruitment has gotten less clear over the last couple months. He had methodically named a top five back in March, after which Clemson, LSU and Tennessee started to emerge as the three top contenders once the summer started rolling. However, Bush announced last month that he was opening his recruitment back up, which apparently means we are back to square one, or somewhere closer to it heading into fall.
Davis is one of the newest prospects to come back on the market. A long-time commit to his home-state Duke Blue Devils, Davis officially parted ways with Duke this summer and re-opened a recruitment that was starting to pick up steam after many schools stopped recruiting him in the near aftermath of his verbal. Tennessee is now a contender. North Carolina would like to keep him in-state, but Davis has all his official visits available to him and is a player to watch this fall.
If your school is looking for length at the cornerback position, there are several options still available in the 2019 class and Sanguinetti, at 6-foot-2, is one of those remaining. He has been tied to several teams throughout the course of his recruitment, but for his part the Florida native purports to be more wide open going into the fall. He just released a top eight on Sept. 6 that consisted of Auburn, Florida, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Ole Miss and Stanford.
This is the eighth uncommitted cornerback in the Rivals250 featured here, attesting to the depth available at the position. The Tampa native is dutifully marching through his recruitment, but still appears to be months away from a decision. South Carolina was the first school to get Dixon on an official visit back in June. His second official visit is planned to Penn State for the end of this month, but he is undecided on where and when he will take those remaining official visits.
The final two prospects on this list are not in the Rivals250, but they are still rated as four-stars. Clark has been on the cusp of the 250 throughout his recruitment, and although his performance at the Rivals100 Five-Star Challenge presented by adidas in June did not bump him into that tier, it did reaffirm his four-star status. A Baton Rouge native would usually be thought to go to the local school, but LSU has not offered, leaving the door open for programs such as Arizona State, Cal and Vanderbilt.
Better known as “MJ,” Devonshire bested a deep group of defensive backs to bring home position MVP honors at the Rivals 3 Stripe Camp presented by adidas in Ohio this past spring. For the most part, though, teams have been slow to get on board with the four-star cornerback. His offer list is 10 schools deep, though there are some heavy-hitters in there like Michigan State, Ohio State and West Virginia. It took the local team, Pittsburgh, until late spring before it came through with an offer.