Star player from Columbia is now an NFL prospect. Why didn’t Clemson, USC offer?

Quincy Riley grew up in Columbia, not too far from the University of South Carolina’s football stadium.

He dazzled in the Gamecocks’ backyard at A.C. Flora High School .

His family had its fair share of Clemson fans — including him and his mom.

And now, after returning for a sixth season, he’s widely considered one of the best cornerbacks in college football and is a lock to be selected in the 2025 NFL Draft.

Riley’s football career has all the makings of an in-state recruiting success story … except when you figure out neither Clemson nor South Carolina offered him a scholarship coming out of high school as a Class of 2019 recruit .

Really?

Speaking from Charlotte last month, where he was one of three players representing Louisville at the ACC Kickoff preseason media event, Riley grinned.

“They just never really just went at me,” he said.

His old A.C. Flora coach, Collin Drafts , concurred.

“I don’t remember anything,” Drafts, who coached Riley his junior and senior seasons, told The State. “At the most, it would’ve been, ‘Hey, he can be a preferred walk-on’ or something.”

Don’t get it twisted: Riley, 23, has no regrets about his college football journey. He loved making a name for himself at Middle Tennessee State , where he played his first three seasons. He’s had a great time at Louisville, where he was an all-conference honorable mention last year and helped the Cardinals go 10-4 and reach their first ACC championship game .

And he’s fired up about giving scouts one more year of game tape before heading off the NFL Draft, where one website, The Athletic , already considers him the No. 5 cornerback prospect for the 2025 class.

“I wouldn’t change it,” he said.

But with that in mind, he’s willing to talk some revisionist history.

Underrated ... but why?

To be fair, it wasn’t just Clemson and South Carolina that missed on Riley coming out A.C. Flora, a Class 4A high school in Columbia. It was every power conference school in the country.

Drafts, now coaching at Nease High School in Florida, took the A.C. Flora job in spring 2017. Riley — who played football and basketball on top of running track — stood out “right away,” Drafts said, as one of the best players on a Falcons team coming off a solid 6-6 season.

During his sophomore year, Riley said coach Dabo Swinney ’s Clemson program — while marching on to a 2016 national championship season — reached out. The Tigers were impressed with what he’d put on film as a cornerback and told him as much.

“Then they just backed away,” he said.

Looking back, Drafts can identify a few reasons why Riley was a late bloomer of a college recruit — even if he wasn’t particularly a late bloomer of a player. For one: team performance. During Riley’s junior season, a critical year for college interest, A.C. Flora went 0-10.

Fair or not, Drafts said, his coaching career has taught him that college recruiters will often focus their attention elsewhere when they see an unsightly record like that on MaxPreps.com .

During Riley’s junior season, Drafts said, A.C. Flora also played him almost exclusively at cornerback rather than utilizing him as a wide receiver and/or return man.

“That was a mistake,” Drafts said with a laugh.

But Riley never wavered. Drafts will never forget one play where A.C. Flora was already losing by 21 points in the fourth quarter and allowed another touchdown — only for Riley to come screaming off the edge to dive and block the ensuing, essentially meaningless PAT.

Still, the cornerback started his senior season with little college interest. Riley’s only two scholarship offers entering 2018 were from in-state FCS schools The Citadel and Charleston Southern . Forget a lack of recruiting “stars”; he didn’t even have a profile page on 247Sports.

Then Riley, as he put it, “did enough to get to the next level.” That’s a bit of an understatement for someone who picked off a career-high five passes; had 28 tackles, had 19 catches for 303 yards and four touchdowns; and added a whopping six scores via kick return and punt return as A.C. Flora went 9-3, won its conference and reached the second round of the 4A playoffs.

“He made some of the most electric plays that year I’ve ever seen,” Drafts said.

College football teams took notice — sort of. Riley started raking in offers from Group of Five schools: MTSU, Coastal Carolina, Arkansas State, Georgia State, Georgia Southern. Drafts remembers fielding calls from Duke, Pittsburgh and North Carolina later on during Riley’s senior year. None of them offered, though.

Surely USC, then coached by Will Muschamp, and Clemson, under Swinney, at least considered going after an in-state kid who had natural ties to both programs?

Riley couldn’t recall any talks with South Carolina.

“Never even a nibble,” Drafts added of Clemson.

One more year

After taking official visits to Kent State and Middle Tennessee State after the season, Riley committed to Middle Tennessee State that winter, citing his strong relationship with the school’s cornerbacks coach and MTSU’s early belief in him (the Raiders were his first FBS offer).

The rest is history.

After missing most of his first season with injury, Riley made the C-USA All Freshman team in 2020. He led the conference in interceptions and fourth nationally with five picks in 2021. He was among the most coveted recruits in the transfer portal that winter and had his pick of nearly a dozen high-major schools.

South Carolina did reach out to Riley that time around, coming off the first season of the Shane Beamer era, but the Gamecocks didn’t gain much ground.

Louisville “just felt right,” Riley said, and with the Cardinals he’s been even better.

Long and strong at 6-foot and 195 pounds, he started all 13 games for Louisville last year and had 49 tackles, three interceptions and 11 pass breakups. Riley shocked many when he opted to return for a sixth and final season instead of declaring for the 2024 NFL Draft.

“The sky’s the limit for him,” Louisville coach Jeff Brohm said of Riley, adding that the cornerback wanted to “come back, improve his stock and get in great shape.”

And, by no fault of his own, Clemson and South Carolina fans will have to keep wondering how a homegrown talent like Riley made it out of the state, just like they did with former Dutch Fork High School and Tennessee wide receiver Jalin Hyatt .

“Recruiting’s a funny game,” Drafts said. “You really don’t know, right? It’s always their best guess. … But the cream always rises to the top. That’s why you see guys playing in the NFL that didn’t play Power Five or that played FBS or D2 or sometimes D3. Quincy’s gonna be another one of those stories of success.”

Back in Charlotte, Riley shrugged.

“If those guys wanted me, they would’ve had me,” he said.