Archrivals visit Carter’s hoops game together

As the recruiting battle intensifies for standout defensive end Lorenzo Carter (6-5, 232, Norcross, GA), there are occasional awkward situations such as the one when four Florida coaches showed up Tuesday night to watch Carter play basketball. Florida State coaches also showed up, putting Lorenzo’s mom, Lisa Carter, uncomfortably in the middle.

“It went well Coach Joker (Phillips), Coach (Brad) Lawing, Coach (Coleman) Hutzler and Coach (D.J) Durkin were here,” Lisa Carter (Lorenzo’s mother) said. “They were actually at his basketball game last night and watched Lorenzo play basketball. Florida State was actually there too and it was kind of awkward but I kept one on the right side and one on the left side.”

Since two schools were in attendance at Carter’s basketball game the Florida coaches didn’t get to talk much about recruiting.

“Last night was really just general talking about Lorenzo,” Carter said. “They were asking us about his basketball game and who taught him just general stuff like that. I told them I would have to give all of the basketball credit to his dad.”

Carter is a huge Florida target, which is why the UF coaches have been all over Norcross visiting Lorenzo and his family.

“Florida has been by the house, the school and one of the coaches actually visited me at work one day,” Lisa Carter said. “We have definitely kept close contact with Florida and I actually spoke with Coach (Will) Muschamp earlier today and we talked about Lorenzo and last night’s visit.”

Carter took his official visit to Gainesville back during the fall and hasn’t visited Florida since but the Carter family actually visited the Florida campus not too long ago.

“Myself, Lorenzo’s father and Lorenzo’s grandmother all stopped by Gainesville on our way back from Orlando for the Under Armour All-American game,” Lisa Carter said. “She hadn’t had the chance to see the campus since she’s from Memphis but she wanted to see it. I explained to her that it was the dead period so we wouldn’t get to see or talk to anybody but she wanted to go. It was a great visit and she liked it.”

After seeing the campus for herself does grandma approve of Florida for her grandson?

“Oh yes his grandmother approves of Florida,” Carter said.

The next time the Florida staff will see Carter is next Thursday when Muschamp pays a visit to Norcross.

“Coach Muschamp comes for his in-home visit on Thursday and Coach (Mark) Richt come in-home on Monday,” Carter said. “We will leave that Friday for the Georgia official visit.”

The Georgia official visit is setting up to be a big visit for the Carter family as they have some questions for new defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt.

“Right now we are trying to build a relationship with coach (Jeremy) Pruitt because when he was at Florida State everything went through Coach Kelly,” Carter said. “So we really haven’t had much contact with Coach Pruitt at all except for knowing his name. Since he’s gotten to Georgia though we have been trying to build that relationship with him and see what his plans are for Georgia’s defense plus trying to find out who the new defensive line coach is going to be as well.”

Andrew Spivey
Andrew always knew he wanted to be involved with sports in some capacity. He began by coaching high school football for six years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism. While coaching, he was a part of two state semifinal teams in the state of Alabama. Given his past coaching experience, he figured covering recruiting would be a perfect fit. He began his career as an intern for Rivals.com, covering University of Florida football recruiting. After interning with Rivals for six months, he joined the Gator Country family as a recruiting analyst. Andrew enjoys spending his free time on the golf course and watching his beloved Atlanta Braves. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewSpiveyGC.