Myrtle Beach’s Sinclair commits to play football at Old Dominion

Make that two Myrtle Beach football players planning on continuing their careers at Old Dominion.

On Friday, Seahawks running back Brandon Sinclair made a verbal commitment to the Conference USA school, three months before the start of his senior season and eight days after Myrtle Beach quarterback Drayton Arnold pledged to ODU.

“We could try to take over the program,” Sinclair joked while on his way home from a visit to the Norfolk, Va., campus. “We’ve been together since we were 8 years old. Now we can go to college together.”

While the packaged deal now creates plenty of story lines, Sinclair has certainly done enough on his own to merit significant interest. He also had offers from Coastal Carolina and Cornell, and multiple Power Five programs, including South Carolina, had taken in-school visits to watch him.

Last fall, Sinclair rushed for 1,318 yards, tops in the area for the second consecutive year, and pushed his career total to 3,997. He also had 23 total touchdowns.

Old Dominion offered Sinclair, Arnold and Conway running back Jah’Maine Martin in a two-day span earlier this month.

When Arnold committed to the Monarchs last week, he said he was going to go to work on getting Sinclair to join him. The Seahawks tailback, after visiting the school Friday, had more than enough to go on.

“I thought it was coming down to crunch time,” Sinclair said. “While I haven’t started my senior year yet, I really felt I needed to decide what college I wanted to go to. Old Dominion was the perfect fit. It’s like going from one beach to another.

“Everybody’s talking about how they’re a pass-happy team, but their running back [Ray Lawry] was the Conference USA Freshman of the Year.”

Barring a change of heart, Sinclair and Arnold will join a Monarchs offense that also includes former South Carolina prep stars Shuler Bentley, formerly of Byrnes, and Eri’Reon Hayes. All four were crucial pieces of state championship high school teams.

Sinclair said he and Arnold intend to add one more to the mix this fall.

“It’s always good to go out with a win,” he said. “It was bad we had to go down last year with injuries. We just have to find everybody to fill in the spots.”

Sinclair makes three local players from the Class of 2016 who have already committed. In addition to Arnold, Conway receiver Bryan Edwards, who was announced among the finalists for the U.S. Army All-American Bowl earlier this week, verbally committed to South Carolina in March.

This story was originally published May 22, 2015 at 5:48 PM with the headline "Myrtle Beach’s Sinclair commits to play football at Old Dominion."