USC Football Recruiting: Marquis Ware Highlights Visitors for Oregon Game

The USC Trojans game against the Oregon Ducks is not just a way for USC to cut Oregon back down a size and improve their own stock in the Pac-12, but it is also an opportunity for Lane Kiffin to help give a few 2014 recruits a great image of the program’s dominance early on in their recruitments. 2014 prospects Damien Mama, Marquis Ware, Jamardre Cobb, Gregory Webb, and Rodney Carr will all be on unofficial visits to USC to take in what should be the game of the year in the Pac-12.

Mama is one of the top 250 recruits in the nation and has two early offers from Colorado and Utah, and is a huge four-star guard at 6’5″, 340 pounds.

Webb is a wide receiver from Junipero Serra who is looking for his first offer, but he already has interest from several big schools such as Oregon, USC and Nebraska. The Ducks and Trojans are two schools he is looking at heavily early on, so this is a big chance for USC to get an early edge in his recruitment.

Jamardre Cobb, Rodney Carr, and Marquis Ware are a trio of teammates from Bishop Mora Salesian in L.A. on unofficial visits. All three of them are among the top 500 recruits in the nation, with Ware and Cobb being big four-star targets.

Carr currently has just one offer from SMU, but he has interest from several top programs, including: Missouri, Cal, USC, Vanderbilt, UCLA, Oklahoma, and Utah. A three-star athlete, Carr is ranked by the 247Sports Composite as the 44th best athlete in the 2014 class and the 44th best prospect in California.

The USC Trojans have offered a couple of outside linebacker prospects in the 2014 class, and it will be interesting to see if Cobb becomes one of them. He’s one of the elite OLBs in the nation and a top 150 recruits overall. The four-star talent has a handful of offers, with two coming from the Pac-12 (WSU and Stanford). Last season, he had 82 tackles and 11 sacks.

Teammate Marquis Ware is the headliner of the five unofficial visitors, and he is also a standout for Salesian at outside linebacker. He had 14 sacks and 79 tackles last season, and he’s also had 503 receiving yards on 33 catches at the tight end position. One of the top athletes in the 2014 class, Ware should definitely be regarded as one of the top 100 recruits in the nation. In fact, 247Sports has him at 55th.

At this point in time, Ware has nine offers including six from Pac-12 schools: Oregon State, Stanford, Washington State, Colorado, Arizona, and UCLA. In addition to that, Boise State and new SEC power Texas A&M have given Ware offers.

The dynamic four-star recruit is high on both Oregon and USC, so this is an important early visit for both USC and Ware.

According to Scott Schrader, he “should be getting” another major SEC offer in the future from the Florida Gators.

One 2013 prospect from Salesian will be at the game, and that is three-star dual-threat quarterback Jihad Vercher. Even though he is still waiting for his first BCS offer, the top 50 dual-threat quarterback has interest from Cal, Oregon, Washington State, Iowa State, UCLA, Oregon, Nebraska, and Minnesota. Idaho and Northern Arizona are his only two offers at this point in time.