When it comes to lack of clarity, the Iowa Caucus has nothing on the Jordan Burch signing ceremony Wednesday afternoon at the Hammond School gym. The five-star defensive end and five of his teammates gathered in front of media, family and some classmates ostensibly to sign the letter-of-intent with their respective schools.

Burch committed to the Gamecocks December 18th but held off signing that day so he could sign with his teammates today. In between he took an unofficial visit to LSU followed by an official visit to USC.

So, Burch sat at his table with his mother and other family members, wearing a Gamecock baseball cap, and scribbled something on a piece of paper in front of him. Except that wasn’t an LOI in front of him. Asked in front of a large group of media if he had signed his LOI with USC, Burch would not answer, and his mother refused to answer questions as well.

Even Hammond head coach Erik Kimrey was unable to give a clear answer to the question of whether or not Burch had signed his LOI, saying he may have have done so earlier but but did not know.

At some point, while players were posing for pictures with family, David Cloninger of the Post and Courier got an affirmative answer from Burch to the question about signing the LOI. But outside of that, there was no other confirmation.

As of 3:20 PM, USC had not confirmed the signing of Burch. USC did confirm receiving the signed LOI from Hammond DT Alex Huntley around 3:00 PM.

As he did after announcing his commitment in December, Burch did not talk with the media before leaving the gym.

USC coach Will Muschamp was in attendance for the signing event, sitting with his son Jackson who is going to Georgia as a PWO. Muschamp did not talk with the media but will hold his Signing Day press conference at 4:30 PM.

Alex Huntley meets with the media

Video of the signing event at Hammond School