South Carolina coach Shane Beamer and offensive line coach Lonnie Teasley are working to land one of the biggest prospects in the country in OT Joshua Sam-Epelle (6-9 340) of Douglasville, GA. They offered him in May of 2024 as one of the first P4 schools to offer him. Now, they are in a prime position to land him over some other big-time programs.
“I’m pretty close,” Sam-Epelle said. “It’s a lot of schools in my recruitment right now, but picking out the fake from the real, and knowing what I’m going to get out of a program, is really big for me right now. I think I’ve narrowed that list down to the schools that I’ve been looking at and schools that have been recruiting me. I pretty much know what I want out of this whole process. I’ve got it down to Tennessee, Georgia, Florida State, Carolina, Nebraska and Miami.”
And from those six, Sam-Epelle said he has a top three of USC, Georgia and Tennessee.
Sam-Epelle has made multiple visits to Columbia, including his first real game in Williams-Brice Stadium last Saturday night. That visit further cemented the Gamecocks in his thinking.
“Every time I go down to Columbia, it’s probably going to be a great time,” Sam-Epelle said. “The hospitality is always going to be there from the coaching staff. Coach Beamer and the offensive staff, they take good care of me and the players as well. Watching them out there playing ball, obviously, I looked at my position. I was looking at Josiah Thompson and watching him throughout the whole game, and also, watching how they move the ball really well. They struggled a little bit coming out, but they picked it up towards the end. And it was great to see the traditions for the first time in a real live game setting. It was a great experience to soak all of that in and see how it felt.”
Sam-Epelle said he talked briefly with Beamer on the sideline prior to the game. He had a longer conversation, however, with Teasley.
“Coach Teasley lets me know I’m a top priority for them in my class,” he said. “They need guys and dudes like me. My buddy, Maxwell Hiller, we’re being recruited heavy by them. They let us know that they are not going to stop coming after us.”
Sam-Epelle attended the spring game at Williams-Brice in April. He was also in for a junior day in March, and that’s when he befriended Hiller, another national offensive tackle prospect from Coatesville, PA. Right now, the two are talking about attending the same school, and making their commitments public at the same time.
“We both said we’re going to get after it after the season,” Sam-Epelle said. “When the season gets over with, you can expect to see a pretty big announcement from me and him. We’re going to make it big. If it happens simultaneously, so be it. But we are definitely going to make it big.”
Clemson has not offered Sam-Epelle, and he doesn’t have the Tigers among his favorites right now, but he plans to visit there for the Florida State game and see where that might lead.
“Clemson is in there too, but you know how they are with the offer and all that,” he said. “I’m not really too big in all that. I’m just really focusing on ball. In the recruitment process from the start, they were in there pretty heavy, but it’s declined a little bit. I expect it to pick back up. I’ve had conversations with the coaches and pretty much I’ve just got to take one more visit back down there.”
Sam-Epelle was at Georgia in week one. This weekend, his plan is to go to Georgia Tech for the Clemson game and then to USC for the Vanderbilt game. He also plans to be at Georgia for the Alabama and Texas games, at Nebraska for the Southern Cal game and at USC for the Alabama game.
Some of his other offers are UCLA, Maryland, Colorado, Arizona, Texas A&M, Duke, Florida State, Penn State, Miami, Pitt, Arkansas, SMU, Auburn, UCF and USF.