Top USC target Rick Sandidge has plan in place for rest of recruiting process

Defensive lineman Rick Sandidge of Concord, N.C., spent Friday and Saturday at South Carolina with his mother and, once again, said he thoroughly enjoyed his time in Columbia.

The Gamecocks will be in his top seven when he gets around to announcing that soon. He no doubt would make his mother, a USC grad, very happy by picking the Gamecocks, but he said she’s not pressuring him and he’s under no pressure to make a quick decision. His recruiting will continue deep into the season, if not beyond.

Sandidge was involved in all the social aspects of Saturday’s cookout, but there was time set aside for recruiting talk with Will Muschamp and Lance Thompson. He said he saw Muschamp at least 10 times during the visit and he repeated the message he has made clear to him from the start.

“We really need you and want you here and stuff like that,” Sandidge said. “At one point it felt too good to be true. They made me feel like I was like the number one prospect that they needed.”

That being said, Sandidge is not ready to make a final decision and he has a plan in place for the rest of his recruiting experience.

“Take some more visits, use my officials, hit some games during the season, more than I did last year,” he said. “I only went to three games last year, so I’m trying to pick it up more since it is my senior year.”

He is planning to visit North Carolina unofficially for the Louisville game and he wants to save his official visits for out-of-state trips.

Sandidge’s mother is very active on social media when it comes to expressing her fondness for her alma mater. Sandidge sees that and knows that people think his mother is pushing him that way, but he insists that’s not the case.

“My mother doesn’t do that at all,” Sandidge said. “She might be biased about them because she went there, but she still understands that that’s my decision and she knows that she’s not going to be there, I’m going to be there. She can understand that. She also wants to see the games and it kind of affects my family on seeing the games. If I wanted to go to Michigan or something like that or if I wanted to go to Florida State or the Florida Gators, that might affect her a little bit. Other than that, it’s really my decision and it doesn’t affect it all. I’m really neutral with all the schools. I feel the same about all of them really.”

This story was originally published July 26, 2017 at 9:09 AM.