25 OL Nathan Gilley talks Chapin Spring Game, big summer recruitment ahead
Nathan Gilley is a 6-foot-2, 265-pound, Class of 2025 offensive lineman of Chapin High School who recorded a whopping 54-plus pancake blocks on his way to a standout junior season where he was selected as an All-Region and All-State athlete.
In an exclusive interview with Palmetto Preps, Gilley, who is excited to showcase his stuff at the Eagles’ annual Spring Game tonight at 5:30 p.m., broke down how his college recruitment has been progressing and what lies ahead this summer as his grand finale in Chapin approaches.
When the Eagles break spring camp following the final whistle of the spring game, a new grind for the offensive lineman (who is beginning to hear from a long list of college coaches) will start: the visits and showcase camp season, which is loaded on both ends.
In the meantime, between offseason workouts, spring practice, performing the balancing act of excelling on the gridiron and classroom (where he is making a high-benchmark 3.9 GPA) and enjoying his social life, friends, and family, Gilley has has been staying in touch with coaches, working hard, and hitting the recruiting trail during the offseason as his big-ticket senior season approaches under the “Friday Night Lights of the Palmetto State.”
Following Chapin’s big scrimmage, where the 5A Eagles will close two weeks of blood, sweat, and tears at spring practice, that new season of life will begin for Gilley.
With these two aspects of what could make or break his potential college career coming into focus, Gilley is heating up on the recruiting trail at the right time, as the Eagles’ star is rolling hot with two recent offers: from Limestone (May 7) and Fayetteville State (May 17) and camp invites (from big-name Power Four programs, Oregon and Wake Forest) all while several local Group of Five and FCS programs were already demonstrating interest: The Citadel, Furman, Gardner-Webb, Georgia State, Mercer, and North Greenville, each of the area schools which he has visited.
Head coach Maurice Drayton, who has seven years of NFL coaching experience, and The Citadel, could be among his top interests, along with instate Division 2 standouts (Lenoir-Rhyne, Newberry) and Coastal Carolina, the Chanticleers who have flexed their muscles in the Group of Five over the last four years (39-12 since 2020), and head coach Tim Beck providing a strong-follow up rookie season as head coach in Conway after Jamey Chadwell left for Liberty, leading CCU to 8-5 and a Hawaii Bowl championship), who could also be in the mix. A strong, underrated recruiting class in the 2024 cycle could mean more good things to come on the Grand Strand, and Beck’s program could also be among part of a growing list of schools who could potentially buy into the rising “Gilley Stock” for the Class of 2025.
“Each of those schools have invited me to camp, and said that I am on their radar,” he said.
From the Citadel’s side of things, not only have the Bulldogs been in touch, but coaches were at his practice on Tuesday. He was also in Charleston for the Spring Game at Johnson-Hagood Stadium. “I had a conversation with (Tight Ends’ and Assistant Head Coach Danny Lewis) after the practice, and he was also able to speak with my father,” Gilley said.
From Coastal Carolina, it was a Chanticleers’ Coordinator of Offensive Recruiting Kyle Steinhoff who was impressed with his upside. “He said he loves the physicality I play with, and he loves my film,” Gilley said. The assistant from the Sun Belt program wants to get a better glimpse of what the Eagles’ star can do up close. “He wants me to get on campus this summer for a camp,” he said.
And when Gilley, a player with good measurables, boasting a bench press of 340 pounds, a squat of 425 pounds, a shuttle of 4.5 seconds, and a 40-yard dash of 4.89 seconds, heads to Winston-Salem for the big Demon Deacons’ camp next week, which will be sometime in June or July, coaches from two Division One schools will be there waiting to meet him: Lafayette and the Virginia Military Institute. “They will be there,” he said.
Gilley reported to Palmetto Preps this long-ranging list of schools who have tendered him camp invites or are demonstrating interest in adding the services of the Midlands’ offensive lineman to their program in the future, among those that were previously listed above: Memphis, West Georgia, Erskine, Army, North Greenville, Anderson, Charleston Southern, Brown, Yale, Cornell, Dartmouth, Murray State, Averett, Colgate, Virginia-Wise, East Tennessee State, Marshall, and Penn.
Via the invite from Oregon, Gilley joins the select club of Midlands athletes who have been in touch with the big-time, West Coast Ducks. He joins Donovan Murph, a three-star Class of 2026 wide receiver of Irmo High School with 23 offers who has most recently scored opportunities from head coach Dan Lanning’s program and Auburn, and Ole Miss, and UCF, those four schools who join a long, national list of programs who want to add the vertically-inclined, football-snagging, speedy, route-running athlete to their program the the Power Four level.