BY EARL VAUGHAN JR. | CityView Sports Columnist
Many of television’s talking heads have voiced the opinion the transfer portal has put a serious crimp on the recruiting of high school athletes by colleges, especially the numerous ones who don’t rise to the top of the prospect list.
Eric Mac Lain, former Jack Britt standout who was high on those lists when he chose to play football for Clemson years back, agrees the path to a Division I football offer is tougher for less than prime candidates now.
But the ACC Network football analyst feels the portal doesn’t completely rule out the hopes of a tweener in high school eventually finding a place on a major college team.
One point Mac Lain made is the different attitude schools have taken toward the portal. His college alma mater, Clemson, has largely shunned portal prospects. Then you’ve got schools like Louisville, he said, which is courting some 24 transfer commitments but only 11 or so high school prospects.
What were once top college prospects are sometimes falling to the Football Championship Series schools, and athletes who were being considered by those schools are going lower divisions of the NCAA.
“It’s a weird kind of mixture of the talent pool right now that has never existed before,’’ Mac Lain said. “We’re living in this time where everyone is trying to find this happy medium.’’
He feels there are a handful of programs like Clemson who are not delving deep into portal prospects as they figure out if it’s still worth the money to perform the college recruiting rite of spring and send assistant coaches out to visit high school campuses and try to find potential gold among the rocks.
Mac Lain thinks the way the colleges recruit could change from year to year, like when there’s a lot of talent in the portal and they land a player with two years left who can really produce. Or if the portal pool is shallow, they decide to dip back into the high school ranks and find help.
Another possible open door for the high school players could occur when an exceptionally good college team sends a host of its players to the NFL after just one or two seasons and a school needs a quick influx of fresh talent that the portal can’t fill.
While in the short term the portal may appear to be bad news for a lot of prospects, Mac Lain said there’s a good side too. For one thing, the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, is full of legends who never played a down of football at a Division I school.
Starting out at a Division II, III or even smaller school is not the end of the world.
“You fast foward a year of college development, college growth, and just natural process for the human body,’’ he said.
Depending on the level of improvement, that can make a player a solid candidate for the portal and a chance to get taken by a Division I school.
“I do think it’s one of those things where situationally, it’s not about how you start, it’s about how and where you finish,’’ he said. “Are you able to leave your mark and make the most of your opportunity for sure.’’
No matter how good a prospect a player is, Mac Lain said there’s one thing certain that can give them a clear advantage in the recruiting process.
Good grades.
“If you can set yourself apart in the classroom, you make yourself so much more attractive to everybody,’’ he said. “They are not having to worry about do we have to find a way to get these guys eligible. Control what you can control there.’’
A dose of self-promotion never hurt either, Mac Lain said. With the advance of services like social media and the high school video service HUDL, it’s easy for athletes and coaches to share with scouts or anyone interested proof of their accomplishments on the field.
As for his ACC Network role, Mac Lain said it’s been a blast, especially last season when the weekly pre-game coverage took Mac Lain and his fellow cast members of The Huddle to different campuses around the league.
He also ran into old high school friends on the remote sets, including former Jack Britt assistant softball coach Joe Myrtle and former Terry Sanford quarterback and current assistant coach Jordan Vann when he visited North Carolina.
He’s also branched out into Sirius XM radio, which has given him a chance to do more and longer storytelling on air. He continues to do a podcast with fellow Clemson alum Kelly Gramlich.
“I’m just growing that thing and continuing to make great relationships,’’ Mac Lain said. “It’s been a lot of fun.’’
• A Holiday Classic final loss to Seventy-First is the only blemish on the record of the Westover mens’ basketball team this season. The Wolverines more than erased that memory from their minds Wednesday night with a 70-59 nonconference win over the visiting Falcons.
Ari Fulton and Malachi Allen led the way for Westover with 18 and 17 points respectively. Allen didn’t play in the 59-57 Holiday Classic loss to Seventy-First. Kaylen Miller rounded out the double figure scoring for Westover with 12.
Westover built a 10-point lead at the end of the first quarter, but put the game away by outscoring the Falcons 22-11 in the third period.
“We try to stay focused on our process,’’ Westover coach George Stackhouse said. “Hopefully it yields positive results. We were able to kind of do a decent job of executing.’’
Westover has a commanding lead over the rest of the All American Conference. They are 6-0 in the league and no other team has fewer than two league losses. Of the eight teams in the conference, only the Wolverines, Triton and Pine Forest currently have records over .500.
But Stackhouse isn’t focusing on the problems of the rest of the league. “We concentrate a lot on us getting better, trying to be more consistent with what we do, offensively and defensively.’’
He felt his team could have played better against Seventy-First in spite of the win. “We’ll go out and try and get better today in practice,’’ he said.
