Friday Night Notes: Charles Lester III’s top 4, Colorado’s flip targets and more

The latest example is the interest in Riverview (Fla.) five-star cornerback Charles Lester III.

USA TODAY High School Sports‘ Friday Night Notes is a weekly high school recruiting recap that looks at the latest news from around the country—from the Class of 2023 to ’24 and beyond.

Cornerback play is a critical part of winning in modern football. Programs that understand this and take it to heart will inevitably have an advantage over those that do not. It should be no surprise then that the top college football teams around the country are consistently in the running to recruit the best high school cornerbacks.

The latest example is the interest in Riverview (Fla.) five-star cornerback Charles Lester III. Twenty-seven different schools have extended offers so far, but Lester recently announced that his top four choices are Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Ohio State.

Lester (6-foot-1, 171 pounds) is making the rounds for his final four. Last weekend he was in Athens according to his Instagram page. He’s also been to Columbus recently and told Sports Illustrated he enjoyed it.

“I was just enjoying the time around the players and coaches. They have a history of producing great DBs.Coach (Ryan Day) just basically told me he would love for me to be a part of the program.”

Lester also has experience on the other side of the ball, posting 53 catches, 652 yards and nine touchdowns over the last two seasons as a receiver.

Going by the composite rankings, Lester is the second-best cornerback in the 2024 class. He ranks No. 4 overall in Florida and No. 15 nationally.

Read more at Buckeyes Wire.

Colorado hosting highly-recruited 4-star RB Stacy Gage for spring game

Several important recruits will be visiting Boulder for the game, including St. Thomas Aquinas (Fla.) four-star running back Stacy Gage.

We will get our first glimpse of Deion Sanders’ new-look Colorado team at their spring game on April 22, which will be broadcast live on ESPN.

Naturally, several important potential recruits will be visiting Boulder for the event. That list includes St. Thomas Aquinas (Fla.) four-star running back Stacy Gage, who announced he was coming last week on his Twitter page.

Colorado’s class of 2024 has five commits so far, but none of them are running backs, so picking up Gage would fill a need. He’s also one of the best at his position in the recruiting cycle. According to the composite rankings, he is No. 10 among running backs and No. 23 overall in Florida.

We know the Buffaloes are at least in the running. At the end of an impressive 2022 season, Gage included Colorado among his top eight schools. He has a ton of other suitors, though, as almost 50 other programs have made offers.

At the moment, On3’s prediction model has Florida (20.7%), Ohio State (18.2%), Oklahoma (15.6%) and Florida State (9.8%) as the top contenders.

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