Clemson has its quarterback for the 2028 class. Trace Hawkins, the four-star prospect out of Calhoun High School in Georgia, told Rivals in an Instagram interview that he was picking the Tigers.
Hawkins is listed at 6-1, 190 pounds. He picked Clemson over Vanderbilt and LSU, the two programs left standing after Duke and Virginia Tech fell off his list earlier in the process. No. 20 quarterback nationally in the 2028 class. No. 295 overall, per 247Sports.
The tape backs it up. Hawkins threw for 2,442 yards and 24 touchdowns as a sophomore in 2025, against just three picks, and he ran for 153 yards and three more scores on 31 carries. Big volume, few mistakes, the kind of arm programs start circling two full recruiting cycles out.
He has already won at a level most sophomores never sniff. Hawkins quarterbacked Calhoun to the Class 3A state championship as a true freshman in 2024, then backed it up with a region title in 2025 before the Yellow Jackets ran into Douglass of Atlanta in the second round of the playoffs, a 12-0 defensive slugfest that ended their repeat bid. Different year, different cast around him. Same habit of winning.
Hawkins has been open about taking an old-school approach to this, valuing culture and a coaching staff he can actually trust over rankings or a stacked offer sheet. That tracks with what Chad Morris has been building since he got back to Clemson. And it means something that a kid with LSU and Vanderbilt still in the mix decided he didn’t need to see the fall evaluation period play out.
Hawkins set his commitment date weeks ago and actually held it. Sounds simple. It isn’t, not in an era where four-star prospects push decisions back a month, then another, then straight through an All-Star week red carpet. He picked a date, sat with it, and showed up.
Two years out is a strange window to lock down a quarterback. But that’s the point. Clemson has churned through quarterback room questions all offseason, and pulling a four-star arm out of Georgia, a state that does not let its top guys leave easily, tells the rest of the class something about where the program thinks it’s headed.
Hawkins becomes one of the highest-profile names in Clemson’s still-forming 2028 class. The Tigers’ 2027 group has already climbed into the upper tier of ACC recruiting rankings, and this one didn’t even wait for the visit season to close it out.
Calhoun has sent players to the FBS level before. Landing its starting quarterback before his junior year season even starts hasn’t.
He still has two full seasons left to play before he ever sets foot on Clemson’s campus as an enrolled player. Plenty of time for the ranking to move, the tape to grow, and the hype to either hold up or fade. For now, the Tigers have their guy, and they got him early.
