Nation’s No. 1 safety talks ‘very important’ Clemson offer

The Clemson Insider recently caught up with a newly offered Peach State athlete, who reported an offer from Clemson last week. When June 1 rolled around, it didn’t take long for Parkview (Lilburn, Ga.) four-star Mike Matthews to have an offer from …

The Clemson Insider recently caught up with a newly offered Peach State athlete, who reported an offer from Clemson last week. When June 1 rolled around, it didn’t take long for Parkview (Lilburn, Ga.) four-star Mike Matthews to have an offer from Clemson in his inbox.

Matthews spoke with TCI last week and detailed an offer that had been in the works for some time now. He also updated his current recruitment and where Clemson currently stands in the mix of things.

“I was very excited,” Matthews said regarding receiving an offer from Clemson last week. “It’s very important for me for a school like that to offer me. It shows how they feel about me as a player.”

Matthews was expecting Clemson to pull the trigger on an offer, mainly because Mickey Conn had been showing a lot of interest and he talked about a potential offer when the Peach State athlete visited back in March. According to Matthews, Clemson’s co-defensive coordinator/safeties coach has been relaying to him for some time now that he’s one of the top guys on his board.

“It was really on my visit (in March),” Matthews said when he first felt like an offer from Clemson was possible. “When I went on my visit it was me and another safety (Noah Dixon) and he told us that we were his favorites. It just means a lot for such a good coach like him to see that in me.”

For Matthews, the offer from Clemson means so much more because of the relationship he was able to build with Conn.

When Clemson formally turned the page to offering prospects in the 2024 class on June 1 and started doling out offers to rising junior recruits, Dixon, a four-star safety out of Troup County High School (Lagrange, Ga.) reported an offer from the Tigers.

Matthews followed suit the following morning.

When we spoke with Matthews at the time of his offer, he indicated that Clemson was at the top of his recruitment. That was, of course, before he made his latest unofficial visit to campus on Tuesday.

Clemson offered Matthews at the safety position, but most schools are split on where they see the multi-faceted athlete at the next level. Matthews said that there are some programs that have offered him with the caveat that they’ll figure out what position he’ll play at the next level later on.

As far as the remainder of his recruitment is concerned, Matthews has tried to plan other visits, in addition to the Clemson one he took Tuesday. Back in May, Matthews told us that he was looking to visit Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Wake Forest, North Carolina, Ohio State and Oklahoma. 

Though, with basketball starting back this summer, he’s finding it difficult to plan visits around his schedule.

Matthews mentioned Clemson, Ohio State, Michigan, Georgia and Notre Dame as the schools that are currently recruiting him the hardest.

247Sports considers Matthews (6-3. 180) to be the No. 1 safety and the nation’s No. 10 overall prospect regardless of position in the class of 2024.

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