During January, a lot of college coaches came by North Oconee High School (Bogart, Ga.), which is home to an under-the-radar prospect in the 2023 class by the name of Khalil Barnes.
Programs like Clemson, came by North Oconee to do their due diligence and inquire about some prospects like Barnes.
Mickey Conn, who obviously, still has deep ties to the area from his days at Grayson High School, made his rounds on the recruiting trail last month, especially in the Peach State.
According to Barnes, his head coach, Tyler Aurandt, told him that Clemson’s co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach had asked about him. It’s all happened pretty quickly from there.
“I’ve talked to Coach Conn and Coach Reed,” Barnes told The Clemson Insider. “They like me as a DB. They like my size and they invited me to their elite day on March 5. I talked to Coach Conn a lot and I really like the guy.”
Barnes already has some ties to Conn and Clemson. He was teammates with Bubba Chandler, who signed with the Tigers as a part of Clemson’s 2021 recruiting class. Though in turn, he elected to pursue a professional baseball career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, which drafted him in the third round of the MLB draft.
Additionally, Aurandt coached with Conn at Grayson. He served as the high school’s offensive coordinator, quarterbacks and running backs coach from 2011-14. Conn, of course, coached at Grayson from 2000-15.
“They said that he’s a really good guy and they like him,” Barnes said of Conn. “Right now, I feel like I talk to him the most out of any head coach, who’s recruiting me. I like him a lot. I will talk to him about football, but then it’ll go from football to just kind of talking about life. He tells me that they really want to get me up there on March 5.”
Barnes feels like almost every day he talks to Conn and he just started talking with Clemson cornerbacks coach Mike Reed.
“Both show real good energy and from what I’ve heard from peers, they’re both really good guys at a really good place,” he added.
What does it mean to Barnes to hear from a school like Clemson?
“It’s big because we get a lot of stuff at our high school from Clemson, just from the culture and the way they run things, in respect to Dabo [Swinney] and how he does things,” he said. “If I get the offer, it’d be a blessing. I talked about it with Bubba [Chandler] every night and he was telling me how much he loves Clemson and how great of a school it is.”
Barnes has talked about Clemson’s history of developing defensive backs with his family. As soon as heard from Conn, he had a 30-minute conversation with his father about what Clemson has been able to produce the past couple of years with guys like A.J. Terrell, Trayon Mullen and Andrew Booth, Jr.
“It feels good knowing that I’m even on their radar right now,” Barnes said.
While Barnes is listed by some recruiting services as a wide receiver, Clemson is recruiting him as a defensive back, hence why Conn and Reed have served as his primary recruiters up until this point.
How would he describe himself as a player to someone who may not have seen him play before?
“A lot of things I post on Twitter, I call myself a playmaker,” Barnes said. “I feel like if it’s a third down in a game, everyone in the stadium could know I’m getting the ball, but I still feel like I can make a play no matter what, offensively. And then defensively, I feel that at corner, whoever the No. 1 receiver is, just let me follow him and take him out of the game. I just like the competition.”
Barnes visited for Austin Peay’s junior day, prior to the dead period. He’s hoping to take three or four visits in the month of March, with one of them being to Clemson. He’ll be in The Valley on March 5.
As far as his recruitment is concerned, Barnes holds offers from just Georgia State and Austin Peay. In addition to Clemson, he’s heard from programs like ECU, Liberty, Kansas State and Purdue. North Oconee had 20 schools come by last week, so it’s been a bit hectic, but Barnes is hopeful that this is a sign that his recruitment will take off sooner than later.
“We’re working for it and praying for it,” he said. “That’s what a lot of people are saying. I hope it does because I’m not one of those guys who likes distractions during the season. So, I’d rather everything happen kind of now and during the season, in the back of my head, just kind of know where I wanna go because for my senior year, I want to have a big year.”
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