re: Class of 2019 Recruiting MEGATHREAD: That's a Wrap Edition

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TideSaint

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I'd like to see a QB in this class with a stronger arm than Taulia.

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I assume these were Enos evaluations. If so, he is incredible. No one of note that I remember wanted either.

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Not a day goes by in his small Louisiana hometown without Ishmael Sopsher hearing the same question.

“They ask me, ‘Where I am going to go?’” he said.

The No. 1 defensive tackle in the country from Amite City doesn’t have an answer, although he fields suggestions.

“They think I should sign with LSU or Alabama,” he said last Friday.

It figures that Sopsher’s decision will come to those two programs. They are the leading contenders to sign the five-star prospect who stands close to 6-foot-4 and weighs 334 pounds.

Sopsher visited Tuscaloosa Oct. 13 to see Alabama’s victory over Missouri. And on Saturday, he will make the 60-mile trek to Baton Rouge to witness the top-five matchup between the Tigers and Tide. But don’t think the outcome of that game is going to sway Sopsher to deliver his final verdict.

“I am going to take it down to signing day in February because I want to take my time,” he said. “I want to make no mistakes, you know what I am saying. Big decision. You got to take your time and you have to choose wisely because if you don’t choose wisely you might end up making a mistake.”

Sopsher has been presented with good options. He will have to decide between his state’s flagship university and the defending national champion — a program that may have stronger ties to his community. Sam Pettito, Alabama’s director of personnel operations, is a native of Amite and played football with Sopsher’s father, Rodney Sr., back in the late 1980s during a time when the Warriors — the city’s high school team — contended for a state championship.

Rodney calls Pettito “a good friend,” and Ishmael said that relationship is meaningful.

Speaking of Pettito, Ishmael said, “I can have somebody I can go talk to and they know me and the area I come from."

The connections to Alabama run even deeper. Sopsher paid attention to the recruitment of DeVonta Smith, the Amite product who chose Alabama over LSU and other programs before rising to stardom as the receiver who caught Tua Tagovailoa’s 41-yard touchdown pass to win the national championship in January.

“It taught me a lot,” he explained. “i didn’t know too much about the process. I followed him around and learned from him. He showed me a lot ways to handle that and what to look for in a school.”

Sopsher plays on a Class 2A team that is 8-1 and has its sights set on its fifth state championship after defeating one of its district opponents, 40-0, last Friday. Since suffering a one-point loss to private school Country Day in the opener, the Warriors have gone undefeated — quickly overcoming the “distractions” defensive coordinator Chris Gordon indicated were tied to the recruiting buzz around Sopsher and his other high-profile teammates.

At a school that has a total enrollment just north of 400 students, Sopsher plays alongside two other SEC-level prospects in the 2019 class — four-star receiver Devonta Lee and Kentucky quarterback commitment Amani Gilmore

Like Sopsher, Lee also holds offers from Alabama and LSU.

‘They ain’t just coming in for me,” Sopsher said of recruiters. “They are coming in for everybody.”

Sopsher, though, is the primary target.

He’s the No. 6 recruit in the entire country and has been touring the nation, going to camps and unofficial visits.

But Amite coach Zephaniah Powell made it pointedly clear that in the process of evaluating his college options Sopsher hasn’t neglected the Warriors.

“Their sole focus is us,” Powell said, referring to Sopsher and Lee. “The only university that matters to them right now is the University of Amite. That’s the only thing that matters to them. They are not really answering and talking about recruiting a whole lot because their whole focus is us.”

That may be be between the lines.

But outside of them, Sopsher is wrestling with a big decision about his college future.

“Like I told my son, yes, LSU is the home team,” Rodney said. “But guess what? If you go elsewhere, I am going to support you. I ain’t getting in his head, telling him where to go…. I don’t know who he’s going to pick but he can’t go where everybody else wants him to go. I told him you got to do what you want to do.”

So stay tuned while Sopsher follows the policy of big-time athletes who came before him.

With little hesitation, he said, “I am just going to try to to take it one day at a time.”

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