Signing Day Profile: CB Marcus Clarke

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Stefan Adams

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2020 Winter Park (FL) CB Marcus Clarke officially became a Miami Hurricane this morning. He was the 5th signee of the day.



The 5-11 175 pounder is currently a consensus 3-star in the national rankings. According to the 247Sports Composite, Clarke is the #790 player nationally, #62 CB in the country, and the #108 player in the Sunshine State.


Recruiting Story

Clarke received his UM offer in June, but things heated up quickly between him and the Canes. Miami was able to get Clarke to Paradise Camp just before the dead period, and then Clarke followed that up by putting the Canes in his top 5 he released earlier this month. UM finally won him over for good this weekend on his second visit and Clarke chose the Canes over FSU, UGA, Tennessee, and West Virginia.


Evaluation


Clarke was a three-way threat for Winter Park, and used his skills to become a playmaker extraordinaire in multiple facets of the game. As a junior, he put up 59 receptions for 1,004 yards and a whopping 21 TD’s for the Wildcats’ offense, while recording 4 INT’s and 2 TD’s on defense, and 3 punt return TD’s to the house on special teams (senior stats unavailable). At the Opening Orlando Regional in February, Clarke recorded a 4.57 40-yard dash, a 4.38 short shuttle, and a 33.50 vertical leap.

Miami likes Clarke at corner, so I’ll focus on his evaluation from that perspective. On film, he has incredible reaction time when breaking on the ball. That type of anticipation has helped him become an interception machine, and his natural ball skills don’t hurt either. Speed demon with great 0 to 60 acceleration. Versatile athlete that is also threat at receiver and returner, and is explosive with the ball in his hands. Average technique as a tackler and could be a liability in the run game at this point.

Clarke is much more polished as a receiver at this point and his corner technique needs development, but based on his film, he oozes athletic potential and reminds me of former Miami DB Corn Elder coming out of high school. He’s going to have an interesting learning curve at the next level.


The Team

The Canes won’t lose any corners to graduation in the 2019 off-season and will bring all their core contributors back. Trajan Bandy will in his third year starting at one corner spot, while Al Blades and DJ Ivey split the season acting as UM’s #2 corner. Last season’s true freshmen Christian Williams and Te’Cory Couch both saw a decent amount of playing time and will look to push for a larger role in 2020.


Redshirt Probability: 8/10

Clarke is currently the only corner in the class, and he comes to a Miami roster without a ton of numbers at the spot. With all 5 corners returning from last year, though, and Clarke being more of a developmental corner, it will likely take some injuries for him to see real playing time. He does add speed to the group, though, and I wouldn't rule out him developing a nickel role as the season goes on.

 
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Great job by coach rumph, went out and got one of the best athlete's period, that can actually play football. All we need now is for coach rumph to lock up about 2 more db's, this cycle, if brown or hodges sign or even both, but this was a real good pick up!
 
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Great job by coach rumph, went out and got one of the best athlete's period, that can actually play football. All we need now is for coach rumph to lock up about 2 more db's, this cycle, if brown or hodges sign or even both, but this was a real good pick up!
Brown signed with UCF and although I love Clarke's speed, athleticism and potential at CB, Rumph has been an unmitigated disaster on the trail. How do we, being right in the middle of the most fertile recruiting ground in the country for fast, quick, explosive and twitchy athletes manage to only have 1 CB on board at this point? Why are we constantly whiffing on our top CB targets? Rumph is a good teacher of the position but as a recruiter he is incompetence personified. Rumph's ridiculous record of futility recruiting the CB position at a school like Miami is quite frankly unfathomable. It's like someone starving to death in a supermarket.
 
That sounds good, but that's always risky, if restrepo can play db, he's a bad man!
watch their film.... clarke isn't an Defensive player and will be switched over to O or should be... reminds me a lot of nigel bethel out of hs bethel was a wr with speed and we tried to turn him into a CB which is why he left lol
 
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2020 Winter Park (FL) CB Marcus Clarke officially became a Miami Hurricane this morning. He was the 5th signee of the day.



The 5-11 175 pounder is currently a consensus 3-star in the national rankings. According to the 247Sports Composite, Clarke is the #790 player nationally, #62 CB in the country, and the #108 player in the Sunshine State.


Recruiting Story

Clarke received his UM offer in June, but things heated up quickly between him and the Canes. Miami was able to get Clarke to Paradise Camp just before the dead period, and then Clarke followed that up by putting the Canes in his top 5 he released earlier this month. UM finally won him over for good this weekend on his second visit and Clarke chose the Canes over FSU, UGA, Tennessee, and West Virginia.


Evaluation


Clarke was a three-way threat for Winter Park, and used his skills to become a playmaker extraordinaire in multiple facets of the game. As a junior, he put up 59 receptions for 1,004 yards and a whopping 21 TD’s for the Wildcats’ offense, while recording 4 INT’s and 2 TD’s on defense, and 3 punt return TD’s to the house on special teams (senior stats unavailable). At the Opening Orlando Regional in February, Clarke recorded a 4.57 40-yard dash, a 4.38 short shuttle, and a 33.50 vertical leap.

Miami likes Clarke at corner, so I’ll focus on his evaluation from that perspective. On film, he has incredible reaction time when breaking on the ball. That type of anticipation has helped him become an interception machine, and his natural ball skills don’t hurt either. Speed demon with great 0 to 60 acceleration. Versatile athlete that is also threat at receiver and returner, and is explosive with the ball in his hands. Average technique as a tackler and could be a liability in the run game at this point.

Clarke is much more polished as a receiver at this point and his corner technique needs development, but based on his film, he oozes athletic potential and reminds me of former Miami DB Corn Elder coming out of high school. He’s going to have an interesting learning curve at the next level.


The Team

The Canes won’t lose any corners to graduation in the 2019 off-season and will bring all their core contributors back. Trajan Bandy will in his third year starting at one corner spot, while Al Blades and DJ Ivey split the season acting as UM’s #2 corner. Last season’s true freshmen Christian Williams and Te’Cory Couch both saw a decent amount of playing time and will look to push for a larger role in 2020.


Redshirt Probability: 8/10

Clarke is currently the only corner in the class, and he comes to a Miami roster without a ton of numbers at the spot. With all 5 corners returning from last year, though, and Clarke being more of a developmental corner, it will likely take some injuries for him to see real playing time. He does add speed to the group, though, and I wouldn't rule out him developing a nickel role as the season goes on.

I feel like Miami should always be on the look out for Malek Young types to fill out the roster. He'll be a contributor some day, and unlike Malek I think he'll get the luxury of a redshirt season. The problem of course is we need a Freshman that gets reps next season, at least one. Hopefully Rumph can find another Christian Williams this year and we wont have to worry about depth going forward.
 
So if he left because they tried to convert him to WR what position is Nigel Bethel playing today?
No sorry for the confusion... bethel wanted to play WR Miami wanted him to play DB he was okay with it but ultimately decided to leave after they took him off special teams and he wasn’t playing the position he wanted too.
 
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No sorry for the confusing... bethel wanted to play WR Miami wanted him to play DB he was okay with it but ultimately decided to leave after they took him off special teams and he wasn’t playing the position he wanted too.
Ah makes sense now. Thanks
 
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Underrated kid with a crazy athletic skillset. Could also be deployed on return teams to wreak havoc while learning the finer points of CB.
Welcome to the U!
 
We should be looking for more Marcus Clarkes right now. After Early Signing Day and the rest of the senior films start to emerge, these jack of all trade athletes are all over the place and are your "diamonds in the rough" if you're going to find them. They are the types that maybe don't play and practice at a position exclusively and high schools use them wherever they need their best athlete...but now is the time to evaluate and get in early before they get big offers from top programs. Think last year with players like DJ Williams, OC Brothers...or you find those late risers like that Asante kid that signed with UNC.

Think S to LB or small move end to LB or WR to CB or QB to RB or DB. Focus here and see if you can find them green gems.

There are guys like Marcus Clarke that are out there and would help the team out. Just gotta find and evaluate them.

Guys like Marcus Clarke...sometimes they are hits...I like the Corn Elder type comp just because he's that type of athlete that through hard work becomes a major contributor. But sometimes guys like this kind of end up overwhelmed at the P5 level and they jump down. idk which of those Marcus Clarke is, but I take guys like that every year and know some of them are attrition candidates. But when they hit, they are important glue guys for a team that just play good college football and raise the standard in the locker room and the gym. We don't have enough of those guys.
 
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