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On Tuesday afternoon, the Miami Hurricanes lost out on another top local player when Ft. Lauderdale (FL) University School 2021 5-star OT Marcus Tate committed to the Clemson Tigers.
“You know nothing can stop me but loss of breath and I’m still breathing so it’s still on.” – Tupac Shakur #ALLIN Blessed By God pic.twitter.com/1ilHE3gJmu
— Marcus Tate ⁵⁵ (@teamfl25) September 24, 2019
This marks yet another elite local player who Miami lost out on. And as we know, Offensive Tackle is a super-premium position, and there are rarely players of Tate’s caliber at this position locally. So, missing out on him, especially considering Miami has targeted him for years and gotten him to visit and camp in Coral Gables multiple times, makes this an even more bitter pill to swallow.
Not only is Miami missing out on top local players in this class, Alabama, Clemson, and Georgia (and likely others) are now moving forward to future years to pluck the top players for the FUTURE as well. This is a PROBLEM.
Tate’s commitment to Clemson comes about 16 hours after 2021 5-star QB Jake Garcia spurned overtures from Miami to commit to his local school, USC. So, that’s 2 MAJOR blows to the 2021 class back to back. Again, this is a PROBLEM.
Miami cannot continue to lose out on elite local players. But, absent a major change to the W/L record, a dubious proposition at best with the below-average state of the Offensive Line among other things, that’s going to continue to happen.
We wish Marcus Tate the best in his future endeavors, but man, Miami needs to change the paradigm and results in recruiting. Fast.