South Carolina Recruiting: Dixon Brothers Pick South Carolina, Clowney Next?

Jan. 4, 2011 was a great day to be a South Carolina Gamecocks fan.

They picked up two huge commitments by the Dixon brothers. Gerald Dixon is a three-star (vastly underrated) defensive end who plays opposite of Jadeveon Clowney at South Pointe, and Gerald Dixon Jr. is an athletic three-star (again, vastly underrated) defensive tackle who plays at Northwestern High School.

There is a major significance to these commitments, and I will get to that in a moment.  First...the players.

Gerald Dixon is one of the most underrated players in this year's class. According to the coach, he is almost as big of a beast as Jadeveon Clowney. 

A report by Jamie Newberg of ESPN talks in detail about this topic.

A great quote from this article:

"'If we didn't have Clowney a whole lot more folks would know about Gerald Dixon,' South Pointe coach Bobby Carroll said. 'Sure South Pointe is blessed to have two great ones like that. That doesn't happen every day. But Gerald Dixon deserves the accolades because he's a really good football player. People need to understand that.'"

What is clear about this article is that Jadeveon Clowney thinks the world of Dixon and attributes some of his success to the success of the big guy. Gerald Dixon had 19.5 sacks. 

He has an unnatural ability to play both the inside and outside with power and speed. 

He also brought with him his brother, who is equally underrated. 

At 6'3" and 246 pounds, he is a load in the middle. He doesn't quite have the reputation of his brother for being dominant, but he did make the South Carolina all-star team. He had 10 sacks at defensive tackle for a 15-0 state championship team.

The father of these two is Gerald Dixon Sr., who played for South Carolina and then went on to a successful 10-year NFL career. 

However, the biggest potential impact of this could involve the No. 1 prospect in the country, man-beast Jadeveon Clowney.

According to Barry Byers of the Rock Hill Herald, the Dixons had this to say:

“We’ve been working on Clowney. I think it’s working,” said Gerald Jr., who got a taste of how they’d work together in the Palmetto State’s winning Shrine Bowl effort.

“With Clowney and all of the Rock Hill guys on the field together, I was thinking to myself, ‘I like this,’” Gerald Jr. said.

Read more here.

It has been rumored that Clowney has said many times that he would love to play with the Dixon brothers. 

They are his best friends.

It looks as though this is going to come down to Alabama and South Carolina, which is pretty much what we thought all along. It will come down to this:

Since Chris Rumph has taken a job at Alabama from Clemson (Clowney was excited about Rumph, who was the only reason he was considering Clemson) and South Carolina picked up two of his talented friends, the competition has become even more exciting.

Does he go with the coach he loves? Or his best friend?

We will soon see, as he is set to make a Feb. 2 announcement.