Wilson excited to recruit again at South Carolina

When Rod Wilson took the linebackers job at South Carolina, he had been out of the college game for three years, spending that time instead in the NFL with the Kansas City Chiefs.

In that time, he wasn’t involved in the recruiting world—coaches obviously don’t have to at the professional level—but it’s something he’s been eager to dive back into now that he’s back in the collegiate ranks.

“It’s definitely been a change. I’ve been away from recruiting for three years but that’s one thing I did enjoy about college football: the fact I get to talk with not only the kids but their parents or their guardians or their mentors or coaches and hear what they want for themselves in the future, how they want to grow, their goals and expectations academically and on the field,” Wilson said. “That part has been going pretty good.”

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Wilson has experience recruiting, spending a few years with Charleston Southern and having to recruit there.

He’s from the state, played at South Carolina and built good relationships with a lot of high school coaches in South Carolina and across the Southeast and gets to rekindle a lot of those now.

“I developed a lot of good relationships before I left to go to the NFL and a lot of the I reopened when I got back and some I maintained when I was gone, by that I mean coaches,” he said. “I maintained a lot of communication with those guys with guys checking in on me when I was in the league. The recruiting part has been going well. I was given some new areas and that’s good. That kind of gets the juices flowing a little bit.”

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Every coach has an area of South Carolina to recruit—Wilson focuses a lot on the Lowcountry, which is where he played high school football—but he’s also tweeted about recruiting in North Carolina and southeast Georgia as well.

With him coming on board and a pandemic hitting, it’s impacted his ability to get on the road and begin recruiting but he’s enjoying getting to do a lot of his reaching out and recruiting virtually before being able to get out in person hopefully soon.

“It’s an opportunity to meet new people, talk ball with different people, get in different areas and grow from there. With the pandemic, it hasn’t been that bad. The only thing that slowed me down was the ability to not go on the road. I’m a people person,” he said. “I was raised in the country and I’m used to going in front of you, shaking your hand, looking a man in the eye and saying, ‘How you doing?’ I believe your body language says a lot about who you are. When you’re communicating with coaches and players that’s a big asset.”

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The Gamecocks have two linebacker commits in the 2021 class—four-star Trenilyas Tatum and three-star Bryce Steele—with the potential to add more over the course of the class.

“When it comes to talent and athletic ability you want a guy who can run. You want all the perks if you can get it,” Wilson said. “You want a tough guy, a guy who’s not going to shy away from hits, can come downhill and lay his hat on you. You want those kinds of guys. You want a guy who loves the game. If you can find a guy who loves the game, plays with passion, flies around the field, that’s the kind of guy you want.”