A visit from Duke’s entire football staff capped off a busy week of recruiting for Riverside football.
Duke was very impressed with the size of some players, especially two junior Riverside Defensive linemen Emmerson Martin Jr. and Brandon Smiley.
Even though Duke was exciting, there were also several other Division I schools that visited in the past few weeks.
A total of five ACC teams visited Riverside’s football office: Duke, UNC Chapel Hill, N.C. State, Georgia Tech, and Wake Forest. In addition to Martin and Smiley, they also met with juniors Keyon Webb, and AJ Bass and sophomores Karie Ryland and Omari Allen.
The most surprising of all visits was from one coach at Arizona State University. Wofford, James Madison University, Elon University, and Appalachian State, also visited.
According to Riverside assistant coach Greg Green, Martin was the most looked-at player by the majority of visiting schools. Martin’s 3.4 GPA as well as his sheer size, at 6’4 and 250 pounds, are the big reasons for all the attention. In addition, Martin finished last season with 10 sacks and 40 total tackles.
“This is probably our most impressive class of D-I ready athletes in our three years here,” Green said.
