Clemson Recruiting: Step Away From Ledge

Clemson’s 2022 recruiting class is coming together at a much slower pace than the fan base is accustomed to.

Heading into the month of June, the Tigers had just four players committed, when they generally have about twice that many verbal pledges by this time of the year. The dead period that was in place for well over a year really hurt the Tigers, and more so than many other programs.

The Clemson coaching staff likes to evaluate in person. They want kids coming coming on unofficial visits in the spring and summer. None of that was able to take place after mid-March of 2020 until June of 2021. It’s understandable that things are going at a slower pace.

The Tigers have added four more commitments in the past month and now have a total of eight. All but one of those are blue-chip prospects. While other ACC teams might have higher ranked recruiting classes, no team in the league has that kind of blue chip ratio, and it’s not even close.

Following the July 4th commitments so far…

Percentage of blue-chip (4 or 5 star) commits, 2022 football:

Clemson – 87.5%
Florida St – 46.7%
North Carolina – 44.4%
NC State – 40%
Georgia Tech – 40%

Nobody else in the ACC with at least 5 commitments has even 20%.

— ACC Content (@ACContent__) July 4, 2021

Yes, Clemson just missed on 5-star Jeremiah Alexander. Alexander is one of the best defensive players in the country and the best player in the state of Alabama. The kind of homegrown defensive talent the Crimson Tide rarely miss on.

The fact Clemson was a legitimate contender in such a short amount of time speaks volumes about the recruiting prowess of this coaching staff. They swung for the fences and missed. It happens. In fact, it’s happened before and will happen again.

The good news is the Tigers are still in it with a number of highly-touted players. Jeadyn Lukus and Keon Sabb are two of the higher ranked guys that Clemson is thought to currently lead for. Cade Klubnik is headed for a fifth star. While they may not currently lead for Travis Shaw, they are still in it.

Oh, and let’s not forget we haven’t even gotten to the All In Cookout yet, where Oscar Delp is scheduled to attend. Some of this staff’s best work has come at Clemson’s premier recruiting event.

The bad news is this class is shaping up to be a smaller one. Maybe even slightly smaller than originally thought. So if you are big into the recruiting rankings, you might be disappointed.

However, the Tigers are still on pace to finish with a class that at worst ranks somewhere in the Top-15, but don’t rule out a Top-10 finish. When it is all said and done, though, judge the class by the quality, not the quantity. Again, this is going to be a smaller class. How much smaller is still to be determined.

This staff has earned the benefit of the doubt, though. This staff is still one of the best in the business when it comes to recruiting. At the same time, if you were thinking the dead period would end and everything would instantly return to normal, that wasn’t very realistic.

This year has provided this staff with a ton of challenges. Past history says they will overcome those obstacles, even if the payoff doesn’t come until the next recruiting cycle.