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Local Hammond running back has a plan

Columbia (S.C.) Hammond School class of 2022 three-star speedy running back CJ Stokes has a long list of impressive scholarship offers and a plan in place for the recruiting process once visits are allowed again this summer.

"My plan is to take three officials (this summer) and then save the rest for later," Stokes said two weeks ago at the Rivals Camp in Atlanta. "I'm seeing Vandy, Missouri and Michigan. All the coaches I'm going to see on officials have real good relationships with me and it's not just that those are my top schools either, those are just the first schools that contacted me that I want to go see about an official, so I just went ahead and set them up. Other schools are trying to get me down, but I'm only taking three and I'm going to save the others for later."

Columbia (S.C.) Hammond School running back C.J. Stokes is one of the state's fastest players.
Columbia (S.C.) Hammond School running back C.J. Stokes is one of the state's fastest players. (Nick Lucero/Rivals.com)
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The 5-foot-10, 188-pound homerun threat will officially visit Vanderbilt on June 4, Missouri on June 11 and Michigan on June 18. He also might camp at Clemson on June 2.

Stokes gave thoughts to Gamecock Central on each of the schools to which he's taking official visits.

Vanderbilt: "It's a great education obviously and I feel like the program is on the up and up. They just got Notre Dame's defensive coordinator as the head coach, so I feel like with all the coaches they're bringing in -- and they've got Coach Norv (Norval McKenzie) from Louisville who was the running backs coach and he had some pretty good running backs over at Louisville -- so I feel like they're on the up and up."

Missouri: "I love Coach Drink (head coach Eli Drinkwitz. He calls me all the time; real funny guy. The running backs coach, Coach (Curtis) Luper, he's a great guy."

Michigan: "Me and Coach (Mike) Hart have a real good relationship. He's their all-time leading rusher. He loves Michigan and I don't see him leaving any time soon, so there's some stability in that. Coach (Jim) Harbaugh is a good coach and Michigan just would be a great place to go and see."

Stokes remains in contact with South Carolina and has some obvious connections with the Gamecocks. Not only is the school a short ride down the road from the Hammond campus but former teammates from Hammond dot the Gamecocks roster while former Hammond head coach Erik Kimrey is now the tight ends coach.

But it's running backs coach Montario Hardesty who is running point on his recruitment for South Carolina, a school he's visited many times before.

"I love Coach Hardesty. He's a real funny guy; he's always fired up," Stoke said. "I talk to Coach Kimrey all the time. He talks to me too but Coach Hardesty is the main dude that's hitting me up. But Coach Kimrey will check on me every other week, so the relationships are real good. I've talked to Coach Beamer a couple of times too, so I'm real close with the staff."

What's the message from the staff?

"Really just, 'Keep us in mind,' because they said I've been getting a lot of big offers, and they're just trying to keep me home, basically," Stokes said.

After the scheduled summer officials, Stokes will then look at the possibility of taking two more officials, possibly during the season.

"I'm probably not going to make my decision until after all my officials," Stokes said. "The schools that are talking to me the most about coming on officials right now are Penn State, Louisville, and Colorado is hitting me up a lot. And West Virginia is another school that's hitting me a lot too."

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