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Wednesday, January 30, 2013
 New favorite to land Carl Lawson?
By Brent Sobleski
Auburn, Clemson, and Tennessee are all trying to sway the the nation's No. 2 recruit, Carl Lawson (Alpharetta, Ga./Milton), to join their programs. Lawson is currently an Auburn commit, but he remains conflicted. Teams have been eliminated, while one may be rising to the top.

"(LSU assistant) Brick Haley talked to Carl (last week),” Milton coach Howie DeCristofaro told Michael Carvell of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “After he left, I asked Carl ‘You interested?’ He was like, ‘I don’t know, coach. Let me think about it.’ He came back 30 minutes later and said ‘Coach, if they call, tell them no thanks. They just got in so late, and I don’t really know much about them.’”

Ole Miss is also out of the equation.

“Carl never gave me a reason," DeCristofaro said. "I just asked if he was going to visit Ole Miss and he said, ‘No, I don’t think so, coach.’ I didn’t really press him on why. If there was a reason, he would’ve told me.”

Clemson continues to remain at the forefront of this recruitment.

"Clemson had long been considered the team to beat after the firing of the Auburn staff and sources inside Lawson's school think it will be the ACC Tigers," Mike Farrell of Rivals.com wrote.

Tennessee is working its way into potentially being the favorite for the five-star talent:

Kipp Adams
Tennessee visit blows Lawson away
"A self-professed huge fan of Peyton Manning growing up, Lawson was excited to tour the same campus where the All-Pro quarterback once attended college. But it was another experience, immediately following seeing Manning on video, that seemingly held Lawson captive during his Tennessee official.

'It was awesome to be able to visit a place where your idol went,' Lawson said. 'The best part about the visit was being able to watch so much film. I watched some of Peyton Manning, and I do not know much about quarterbacks, but then they told me they had all of the film throughout the years, and I went nuts. I ended up staying longer than I was supposed to. They had all of the best defensive linemen, and the best 3-4 pass rushers throughout all of the years on over 10 monitors, and I would watch pass rush film on Jason Babin, Trent Cole, Demarcus Ware, and I was already ecstatic. It was crazy just watching Dwight Freeney, Lawrence Taylor, Reggie White, Derrick Thomas broken down on film with all of their moves dissected. My favorite movie of all time has to be Dark Knight, and this was like that times two.'"