Two-sport athlete Micah Matthews set to visit Clemson in March

Matthews will visit Clemson next month for a spring practice.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Tue Feb 27 13:44:50 GMT-04:00 2024

A top two-sport athlete is set to visit Clemson in early March.

The story of outfielder/wide receiver Micah Matthews out of Bridgewater (VA) Turner Ashby is an interesting one. Four years ago, when he was just 13, Matthews had his college plans figured out. He committed to South Carolina for baseball as an outfielder and was excited about the opportunity to play for Mark Kingston.

Then football came along. Matthews always loved football, and last season, he blew up as a receiver with 86 catches for 1476 yards and 16 touchdowns. As a sophomore, Matthews caught 63 passes for 974 yards and ten touchdowns.

Suddenly, Matthews wanted to play both sports, preferably with the Gamecocks. He began to be recruited by other major football programs, but not the Gamecocks. They never did offer him for football, so he ended his baseball commitment last September. Matthews’ football offers include Virginia Tech, North Carolina, NC State, Rutgers, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, East Carolina, Liberty, Kentucky, Maryland and West Virginia.

Clemson has now entered the picture as well. Receivers coach Tyler Grisham has not offered, but the two are talking, and Matthews plans to visit March 9th for a junior day.

“After my sophomore season, someone from the Clemson staff saw my highlight tape and reached out to me,” Matthews said. “We spoke off and on for over a year, and then he connected me with the wide receiver coach, and we’ve been chatting. So far, he’s just emphasized that he loves my playing style, my physicality and that he feels like I’d be a good fit in the Clemson program. We haven’t discussed much specifically concerning the junior day apart from him just being excited that I’m able to come down.”

Matthews said Grisham has not shared his thoughts about how he would be used in the receiver rotation, but he hopes to learn more about things like that from him during the junior day visit.

“I love the wide receiver product they have had over the years,” he said. “I’m really just wanting to have some clarity on their interest level. I’ve seen a lot of the campus and facilities early on from the baseball side, but I’ve always been a big fan, so I just want to see if they are thoroughly interested in me and have a track for my development. I want to see how and if the baseball and football sides can come together and not just make this work but me grow and thrive."

Matthews visited Virginia Tech on January 27th. He has set official visits to Virginia Tech on June 7th and North Carolina on June 14th and is working on visits with Kentucky and Maryland.

Matthews is rated 58th nationally by Perfect Game. In 18 Perfect Game tournament games last year, he batted .429 with two homers, 17 RBIs and ten stolen bases.