Signing Day Profile: CB Marcus Clarke

Stefan Adams

Dec 18, 2019 3 min read

Series:

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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Comments (54)

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J
jsy

Dec 19, 2019

ThomasG954 said:
Where are Ivey and Blades going after next year, XFL?

They going same place garvin and jt going
Practice squad

C
Calvin

Dec 19, 2019

twes.305 said:
Stop bringing up the past, it is irrelevant to this topic. Dont bring up that Clemson bs, learn some football. Clemson defens held Alabama's offense under 20 points, UM defense would ge ******* smoke. People that just look at stats, but dont provide context. Clemson would not be as good as they are if there defense was not as good or better than UMs. Everybody said Clemson did not play anybody, and then they shut everybody up by wooping Alabama's ***. You think that your points are good, but they are quite ******. All you do is spout bs and say stop being emotional.

LoL, somethings wrong with man, either that or you are learning, cause you just posted the very point i made to you, so its obvious now that you're just posting just to be posting, cause your attempt at a counterpoint is just about the same point i made to you, but ok, carry on, cause at this rate, you might just graduate!

1
1953

Dec 19, 2019

Not a HS track runner but still posted a 4.57-40.

T
twes.305

Dec 20, 2019

Calvin said:
LoL, somethings wrong with man, either that or you are learning, cause you just posted the very point i made to you, so its obvious now that you're just posting just to be posting, cause your attempt at a counterpoint is just about the same point i made to you, but ok, carry on, cause at this rate, you might just graduate!

I'm confused on wat you are talking about.

C
Calvin

Dec 20, 2019

twes.305 said:
I'm confused on wat you are talking about.

You most definitely are, put the yac down and slowly back away!

T
twes.305

Dec 20, 2019

Calvin said:
You most definitely are, put the yac down and slowly back away!

I'm so serious, wat u talking

C
Calvin

Dec 20, 2019

twes.305 said:
I'm so serious, wat u talking

LoL, its ok man, we good!

H
HurricaneHauk

Dec 20, 2019

Use X Rest like Chris Gamble

BooBoo

Dec 21, 2019

Clarke looks like the speed receiver we are looking for to round out the receiver class. He should be treated as an athlete and allowed to play where he performs best. If it is CB then great. If it is receiver then allow him to play receiver. Thought Bethel was more natural at receiver, but I never got to see him perform at the U so I can only go by his high school tape.

TexasCane90

Dec 21, 2019

raytiller said:
think we should switch him to offense and keep restrepro on D

At the rate we are going we might need BOTH of them at Corner

Pathetic how we can get 2 or 3 Corners being down here in S.Florida

T
Tee3000

Dec 22, 2019

Stefan Adams said:
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.

So we signed another offensive kid that played a little DB just like the MNW kid that transferred after a year.

Dumbest coaches in America..hope it works out.

T
Tee3000

Dec 22, 2019

Calvin said:
Appreciate your attempted and unemotional rebuttal, but you like most on here complaining about coach banda and coach rumph recruiting, we had people crying last year as well, as for me, all i worry about is production, and i dont care what league you're in, when you got the #1 pass defense in the nation, somebody/s know WTF they doing. Numbers wise are we where we need to be, this whole roster hasnt been full in at least 4 years, we still playing catch up, so its not just on coach rumph. God Willing and with coach feely in the fold, we'd only be hurting numbers wise if somebody gets banged up, but talent wise, we got a real solid 4 or 5 guys, especially if bandy stays. This year could've been more of a problem, but now, we got guys like couch and williams going into their 2nd year, got good game experience, more time in the S&C program, we know couch for sure will start pushing somebody for more reps, the competition in the db room bout to go up at least 50 degrees.

So again, alot of negative nancy's floating around on this board, worried about stars and recruiting class rankings, means nothing, what happens in actual games is all that matters most, complaining about the competition we played is comical, you sound like the people that use to say that about us when we were in the big east, non UM fans complaining saying "Miami doesnt play anybody" but looked foolish cause they couldnt explain why when we did play "somebody" outside of the big east, in bowl or Championship games they got dominated too, so you should be careful of your criticism of the competition. I've never been into the conference bragging **** myself, but let's look at the facts, since 2013, the ACC conference has won 3 of the last 6 national titles with a chance to get a 4th this year, what teams have they been playing to get prepared for that stage. Many on here keep grasping for straws and making useless points. If UM allof a sudden gets to the CFP's come next year, are those same people going to say something similar to this too:

"We played a brutal slate of offenses, some with no semblance of a passing game..."

Cause right now, clemsons defensive rankings have come from playing opponents from the same league.

This is a pretty bad take.