Football Recruiting: USC Commit Chris Hawkins Will Visit Oregon

Despite committing to the USC program in April, four-star cornerback Chris Hawkins will still use his five official visits this summer amid an injury that could keep him out of his high school senior season.

247Sports’ recruiter, Scott Schrader, shot out a tweet last night that listed Oregon as one of the five schools that Hawkins is interested in visiting. Outside of obviously visiting USC, the other schools are Alabama, Notre Dame, and Washington.

USC CB commit Chris Hawkins will take five official visits http://t.co/8MY8Px0J via @247Sports #USC #Alabama #NotreDame #Washington #Oregon
— Scott Schrader (@Scott_Schrader) July 13, 2012

Why visit after committing to a school? The NCAA allows for a total of five official visits for each potential recruit, before or after announcing their commitment to a school. This window is open until the athlete signs a National Letter of Intent to a university. Any unused visits are waived.

There’s many reasons to why an athlete would still use the visits after commitment. Like all these other steps through the high school and college level, it’s the only chance given to these recruits to look around. Making sure they made the right decision would put their mind at ease and would focus their concentration on improving their game instead of worrying about not being able to adapt and looking to transfer elsewhere.

How much should Oregon fans be interested in the recruit? Anything is possible, but Hawkins grew up as a USC fan. He would likely have to be really impressed with the facilities, coaches, and atmosphere to play outside of a school he loved. Another note is his upcoming surgery that could keep him out of the upcoming season, according to USCFootball.com’s Gerard Martinez.

#USC cornerback commit Chris Hawkins will have surgery on his broken thumb, which could put his senior season in jeopardy, said his father.
— Gerard Martinez (@gmartlive) July 12, 2012

Some positives for the 6-foot, 175-pound recruit from California is that he is highly rated across the board. Hawkins is currently 142nd on the Fansided 150, 89th on the Top 247, and 72nd on the ESPN 150. ESPN has him highest in the state (fifth) and 247Sports has him highest in the cornerback position (ninth).

Brian Spaen is the lead editor for Autzen Zoo, follow the site on Facebook and Twitter. Read his other work on the Iowa State blog, Clones Confidential, and Watson Talk Lacrosse.