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Coaches Bowden, Spurrier, Carroll Visit Tampa Prospects

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By KATHERINE SMITH | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 20, 2009

Three of the highest-profile head football coaches in college football visited Tampa on Tuesday to visit with prospects.

Florida State's Bobby Bowden and USC's Pete Carroll were at Plant High, while South Carolina's Steve Spurrier was at Wharton.

Plant safety Hunter Baldwin watched his highlight video for the first time Tuesday afternoon, and Bowden watched it with him.

Bowden and several other Seminoles coaches spent the afternoon at Plant. They apparently liked what they saw in the Panthers' defensive standout.

"They want me to be a preferred walk on," Baldwin said. "That's pretty huge."

One of Plant's leading tacklers and an extremely hard hitter, Baldwin already has a scholarship offer from Western Michigan, where he recently took an official visit. Elon wants Baldwin to visit its campus this weekend.

The Seminoles also offered two-way lineman Austin Clark a preferred walk-on spot. Clark was the only two-way starter for the Panthers state championship team. FSU is actively recruiting Plant wideout Orson Charles. Charles took an official visit to the school two weeks ago.

The Seminoles are one of five finalists for Charles and they weren't the only ones clamoring for his services on Tuesday.

Carroll was at Plant visiting Orson Charles. The Trojans are one of Charles' five finalists. He is visiting Georgia this weekend and then will travel to Tennessee and USC the next two weekends. He will be making his college announcement after the Feb. 4 National Signing Day.

Plant defeated Tallahassee Lincoln to win the Florida 4A state championship, beating nationally ranked rival Armwood along the way to reach the title game.

Spurrier was at Wharton visiting senior quarterback Andrew Clifford. While Clifford didn't walk away from the meeting with a scholarship offer, Spurrier did extend an invitation for the Wildcats signal caller to make an official visit to the campus in Columbia, S.C., on Jan. 31.

"They liked my tape and they seemed real excited," said Clifford, who threw for 2,263 yards and 20 touchdowns as a senior. "[Spurrier] said he liked my release and the way I throw to the corner. He liked the way we did stuff."

Reporter Nick Williams contributed to this report.

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