Clemson Football: Crystal Ball Prediction for 4-star DT Payton Page

Priority Clemson football target is set to make his decision

One of the top priority targets for the 2021 Clemson football recruiting class is ready to make his decision.

4-star DT Payton Page, who is rated as the No. 7 DT in the nation and No. 4 overall player from the state of North Carolina, will announce his decision at 6 p.m. tonight.

Page, who has been rated as high as the No. 2 DT in the nation, has narrowed his list down to three schools: Clemson, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Clemson football has made it clear that Page was their No. 1 target. In a cycle where they are set to take just one defensive tackle, Page was the Tigers’ lone offer for the majority of the recruiting cycle. He has remained the top priority and there’s no doubt that he would be a huge pick-up for this class that recently just suffered a decommitment from 4-star DB Jordan Hancock.

So, the tables are set. Page is ready to announce.

Crystal Ball Prediction: Will Payton Page choose Clemson football?

Page has talked about all three schools on his final list and it’s clear that he’s developed good relationships with all of these coaching staffs.

That being said, when he talks about Clemson, there just seems to be a difference.

"“Todd Bates checks up on me every other day to make sure I’m still doing conditioning. I was on the phone with (head coach) Dabo Swinney about a week ago,” Page told the Greensboro News & Record. “I like it when coaches don’t talk about football 24/7. I really like that. He didn’t bring up football one time in that conversation. I really respect him for doing that, especially because he could see how exhausted I was the last time I was talking with him about football. … He’s a jokester. He talks about beating me one-on-one all the time. I basically called him out if it was wide receiver-DB. I can beat him. He ain’t that fast. And we just talk about family. When my dad’s mom died he was there (for us).”"

Page has broken it down fairly simple when it comes to his recruitment: He likes North Carolina for proximity, he likes Tennessee because of the atmosphere and potential for early playing time, and he likes Clemson for the family. That says a lot.

This isn’t to say that Page will choose Clemson football when it all comes down to it, but I do think the Tigers have a better chance than not.

247 Sports’ Recruiting Experts have placed eight crystal ball predictions and 100 percent of those predictions go to Clemson. The current consensus in terms of confidence is right around a 6, which is around ‘medium confidence.’

Our Rubbing the Rock prediction is that Page will ultimately choose the Tigers. He is ready for the recruiting process to be over and that likely doesn’t bode well for Tennessee, which probably needed to get him back on campus one more time to really compete.

We could be wrong and he might very well choose the Vols, but I think we’re going to see Page announce his commitment for the Tigers when it’s all said and done.