Ahead of its matchup against the Demon Deacons this weekend, Clemson offered a Wake Forest commit on Thursday.
Yesterday morning, Khalil Barnes woke up to a missed call from Mickey Conn. Barnes had gone to bed early with his high school team having an early morning walk-through.
Normally if Clemson’s co-defensive coordinator/safeties coach calls Barnes, he’d give him a heads up. Though, the circumstances were a little bit different in this case.
Conn reaching out to Barnes wasn’t out of the blue as both he and Wesley Goodwin had been in contact with the three-star defensive back out of Bogart (Ga.) North Oconee since the weekend.
Barnes would get in touch with Conn, who was in a meeting, but would later be summoned to his head coach’s office while he was in his second block econ class.
“I got on the phone with Coach Conn,” Barnes said, recalling his conversation in a phone interview with The Clemson Insider. “He asked me how I was, how my family is and he started explaining the traits and attributes that it takes to be a Clemson football player.”
That’s when Conn told Barnes that he matched all of those and would be extending him an official offer.
Barnes immediately called his parents. The second phone call went to Bubba Chandler, a former Clemson commit now in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, who had been teammates with Barnes at North Oconee.
“It was definitely crazy. I’m blessed,” he said when asked about his reaction to receiving an offer. “I was really happy where I was…I was just kind of in the moment. I was just proud and I knew how hard I had worked for it. It was cool to finally get that one. Coach Conn gave me something to think about, but I just want to focus on helping my team win a state championship.”
Conn brought up a conversation that he had with Barnes and his father back in June.
In that conversation, which Barnes detailed in an interview with The Clemson Insider, Conn was honest and upfront about Clemson’s intentions. According to Barnes, Conn said that he would totally understand if they both hated him and Clemson, after having not pulled the trigger on an offer at the time.
”Just knowing that he remembered that conversation vividly and was able to be a man of his word and produce the offer, it shows what kind of man he is,” Barnes said of Conn.
Barnes, who has been committed to Dave Clawson’s program since June 28, said that Clemson has definitely given him something to think about. Right now, he’s set to be in Winston-Salem this weekend and wants to enjoy and experience the atmosphere as a Wake Forest commit Saturday.
“I’m gonna pray on it and God’s gonna lead me where I need to be,” Barnes said.
Barnes said that he’ll likely discuss taking a game-day visit to Clemson, but whether that’s something that actually takes place is not a question he can definitively answer right now.
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