Clemson, Oklahoma Make Final Two for Tigers' Priority Target

With Clemson Football's season opener against LSU just 10 days away, high school prospects are increasingly narrowing their collegiate options, with the most recent being a priority target for the Tigers.

On Wednesday morning, linebacker Jay Schell announced that he is down to his final two schools, those being Clemson and the Oklahoma Sooners, as first reported by On3’s Hayes Fawcett.

The 6-foot-3, 215-pound backer is rated a consensus four-star prospect and ranks as the No. 97 overall player, the No. 1 player at his position and the No. 13 recruit in the state of Georgia, according to ESPN rankings.

NEWS: Four-Star LB Jay Schell is down to Clemson and Oklahoma, he tells me for @Rivals

The 6’3 215 LB is ranked as the No. 9 LB in the 2028 Rivals300https://t.co/BNYJEBa0kU pic.twitter.com/pJE8w5RMMo
— Hayes Fawcett (@Hayesfawcett3) August 26, 2026

The news hits differently when you look into who Schell and his family are, too. The junior grew up down the road from Clemson in Central, South Carolina, and even attended D.W. Daniel High School as a freshman before transferring to Rabun Gap-Nacoochee High School in Georgia.

Both his mother and father are Clemson alums, with his dad, Matt, playing quarterback for the Tigers from 1998 to 2001. Now, he’s a preacher at a local church in Seneca, South Carolina.

Schell first earned his offer from the Tigers back in June, as he was one of the first two recruits offered in the 2028 class, joining five-star edge rusher Asher Ghioto.

He was joined by his parents when he received the scholarship, having traveled to Death Valley for the annual Dabo Swinney Football Camp, and said the moment left him feeling honored and like a priority to the staff, according to TigerIllustrated’s Paul Strelow.

Clearly, both parties hold a special place in each other's hearts, as Schell has visited campus six times since last summer, which is especially telling for the caliber of talent the young linebacker is.

Ahead of his first year at Rabun Gap, Schell took trips all around the country for camps and ended up standing out at a handful of them, earning offers from schools such as Texas A&M, Houston, Tennessee, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, Georgia and Auburn, among others.

He truly put his name out there during his sophomore season, totaling 77 tackles, 14 for a loss, 12 QB hurries, three sacks, one forced fumble, one pass deflection and one fumble recovery across 12 contests. Since then, Schell has earned a boatload of additional offers, as he sits with 47 total.

Throughout the process, he’s taken nearly 40 visits to different programs, but nothing quite stuck out like the Tigers and Sooners, citing that both fit him culturally — on and off the field — as well as schematically.

The culture aspect doesn’t come as a surprise, either.

As most know, Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables worked as Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney’s defensive coordinator for nearly a decade until his departure in 2022. Since leaving, he’s instilled a lot of similar principles and philosophies into his own program, including S.O.U.L. Mission, which is a developmental program based on Clemson’s P.A.W. Journey.

As it stands, Oklahoma is the front-runner for Schell, with On3’s Chad Simmons logging an expert prediction in favor of the SEC program only yesterday.

However, the Tigers still have a chance at surpassing the Sooner, as the four-star talent will visit Death Valley on September 12 for their home opener against Georgia Southern before heading to Norman on September 19 for the Sooners’ matchup against New Mexico.

Soon after he takes those final visits, Schell plans to make his decision.

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