Gamecocks go north to offer Ohio lineman
The spring evaluation period has been very kind to offensive guard Christian Pace. The Avon Lake (Ohio) product landed offers from South Carolina and Marshall this week, bringing his total to 21 scholarships on the table.
South Carolina and assistant Eric Wolford offered Thursday during a visit to Pace's school.
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"He called me last week and we talked," Pace said. "He told me about their plans for their team, he compared South Carolina to other schools he has coached at."
Wolford previously coached at Illinois, Arizona, North Texas, Houston, and South Florida.
Pace says South Carolina likes him as an interior offensive line prospect.
"They play in one of the best conference in college football, the SEC," Pace said. "Coach Spurrier is a good coach. I knew about him growing up. South Carolina has good academics, and it is in a beautiful state."
Pace says Michigan stopped by his school on Thursday. Marshall and Michigan State also came by this week.
Pace says he will review his situation at the end of the spring evaluation period, decide what schools he is high on, and go from there this summer. Until then, he says there are some more schools he would like to land offers from.
"Georgia Tech, Boston College, Penn State, Virginia are schools that I would really like to get an opportunity to play for," Pace said.
However, at this time, Pace says there are no schools that are certain to make his final list of favorites.
"Every school has something that interest me, whether it is their academics, the coaching staff, or proximity to home. I don't have any schools that I know will be there, I have not ruled anyone out. Everyone is stiill an option for me."
"Ideally, I would like to have the process done before the season. I want to put all my focus into my team, winning fifteen games, and a state championship. If I don't make a decision this summer, I will put it behind me. I don't want recruiting to get in the way of my team's goals, or distract me."
Pace says he would like to go to Ohio State's camp this summer, and maybe some other camps of schools that want to evaluate him. He has been to the Buckeyes' camp before.
"I really enjoyed that camp. That would be really cool to get an offer from them. But I don't know, they signed so many offensive linemen last year. I don't know how many more they are going to take this year."
Avon Lake opens the season at home August 28th against Maple Heights High School.