The first official visit weekend of the 2024 cycle came to a conclusion yesterday and the team already has their first commitment from it.
Just a short time ago via social media, 2024 TE Timothy Lawson, a dual-sport athlete who at one time was committed to UCF for baseball, announced his commitment to the Tar Heels in both football and baseball over his other three finalists. This weekend visit was Lawson’s second trip to Chapel Hill after an unofficial stop on campus back in April. Despite that previous trip, the Tar Heels came in with work to do to catch favorite TCU, who was expecting to have the final shot at him at the end of the month. Clearly the Tar Heel staff turned up the heat and did enough to not only overtake the Horned Frogs but end the recruitment all together.
The extra push from the staff may have been sparked by the news that came down on Friday while Lawson was on campus. Current 3✮ TE Ryan Ward was part of a group that received offers from Alabama late last week and while there doesn’t seem to be any imminent threat to his commitment at the moment, the Tar Heels could be taking precautionary action just in case.
Lawson is getting set to start his final year at Bishop Verot High School in Fort Myers, FL. This past season as a junior, he caught 32 passes for 469 yards and a touchdown, helping lead the Vikings to a 10-3 record and their first state semifinal appearance since 1994. As a sophomore back in 2021, he caught 22 passes for 298 yards and three touchdowns in his first season at the varsity level. He earned first team All-State honors in each of the last two seasons.
Meanwhile on the diamond, Lawson has a Perfect Game score of 8, which means he is seen as a potential draft pick and/or excellent college prospect. He is a left handed pitcher that throws his fastball right around 90 miles per hour and also has a slider that he throws in the mid-70s according to Mike Maerz of Diamond Prospect Media. This past season with Bishop Verot, Lawson went 2-0 in his ten appearances, posting a 1.94 ERA and 36-20 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
With Lawson, the Tar Heels are getting yet another player that has a ton of potential if he sticks with football. At 6’5, 220 lbs, he has a really solid frame already and he pairs that with some really promising athleticism. He does an outstanding job of stretching the field, thriving in the intermediate and deep passing games, something the Tar Heels could use once Bryson Nesbit departs. He does a good job of finding open grass and separation and always seems to find space after the catch. Blocking, as with many high school tight ends, is the biggest question mark, but from the reps he has on his tape, there is a lot of promise there. An even bigger concern with him may be the level of competition that he plays against in the 2S classification in the state of Florida, which isn’t nearly as arduous as some of the other classifications in the state.
The commitment on the football side of things gives the Tar Heels their fourteenth overall commitment in the 2024 class and their fourth from the state of Florida. Lawson is an unranked prospect, so the Tar Heels remain stationary in the 247Sports Composite team rankings, but with the summer that Lawson has had, it should be long until he starts getting ranked.