Clemson thrives in elite recruiting neighborhood

CLEMSON, S.C. — One of Dabo Swinney’s favorite moments recruiting this year was visiting the home of five-star linebacker Tre Lamar just outside of Atlanta. When Swinney was looking for Lamar’s house, he figured it was the one flying a Clemson flag on its front porch; rather, it was one of Lamar’s neighbors.

But Swinney being Swinney, he figured he’d check in on those unsuspecting Clemson fans just to see how they’d react to an unannounced visit from the head coach. As he told them when they opened the door, “You never know who’s going to knock.”

The relentlessly positive Swinney has never been afraid to knock on a few doors in recruiting just to see if he could get an answer, even when Clemson wasn’t residing in the neighborhood of the elite college football programs.

But much has changed for the Tigers since Swinney famously pulled C.J. Spiller out of Florida in 2006 as an assistant coach, a shocking recruiting win that helped launch him to the head coaching position 2 1/2 years later.

Coming off an appearance in the national championship game last month and a steady ascent that preceded it, there is no surprise anymore when Clemson lands elite prospects and highly-rated classes. Though Clemson finished runner-up to Michigan for defensive tackle Rashan Gary, the nation’s consensus No. 1 recruit, the Tigers’ haul of 22 players ranked seventh in a composite of the four major recruiting services.

It was the second consecutive Clemson class to be ranked in the top-10, providing more ammunition for Swinney’s proclamation that a 45-40 loss to Alabama in the College Football Playoff championship game wasn’t going to be the Tigers’ last flirtation with a national title.

“Just real simple, we got better today,” Swinney said. “Two years in a row we have graduated the winningest senior class in the history of this school. That’s a lot of great winners. I think it’s critical we bring in a group of players and people to replace them that have the same type of characteristics that group had.”

Clemson’s rise to championship contender, however, was a story only partially told in recruiting rankings. Though Swinney had picked off some blue-chip types here and there like Sammy Watkins or Stephone Anthony, under-recruited players who developed into stars like Vic Beasley, Bashaud Breeland and Grady Jarrett were just as much of the Clemson magic.

Even this past season, had the Tigers held on in the fourth quarter to beat Alabama, one of the biggest stories would have redshirt freshman walk-on Hunter Renfrow catching two touchdown passes in the championship game.

“There will always be room for those guys, no doubt about it,” Swinney said. “We’ll play the best guy, not the most highly-recruited guy.”

But as Clemson’s national profile has increased, so has the opportunity to recruit almost exclusively from a pool of elite-level prospects. The Tigers are no longer a regional program that does well in South Carolina, picks off some players from the Atlanta area and has a strong presence in Florida.

In this class, Clemson’s reach covered 10 states including as far as Kansas, where it landed four-star defensive end Xavier Kelly and three-star safety Isaiah Simmons. But perhaps the biggest show of strength Wednesday came when the Tigers landed Trayvon Mullen, Rivals’ 10th-ranked cornerback in the country, who picked Clemson over LSU and Florida State and set off a fist-pumping celebration at the Tigers’ signing day party for a select group of fans and boosters.

It was a huge late win for Swinney, whose secondary was decimated by early entries to the NFL Draft. Cornerback Mackensie Alexander, defensive back T.J. Green, safety/linebacker Travis Blanks and safety Jayron Kearse all entered the draft after the championship game, meaning Clemson had to hustle to fill slots, some of which they frankly weren’t expecting to have until late in the season.

Though the Tigers have paid the price for success — 2016 will essentially be the second consecutive year coordinator Brent Venables has had to overhaul his entire defense because of early NFL entries — their ability to recruit has left him with a wealth of talent to work with.

“We had to hit the ground running with a couple weeks to get it done in January, and we were able to say, ‘OK, who's the best guys out there and make some calls and people were interested in coming to see Clemson,’” Swinney said. “That’s a credit to the strength of our brand to get them on campus and finish off beating some of the best programs out there in signing some of these DBs. That was huge for us. It wasn’t a huge need (at the start of the recruiting cycle), but it became one.”

And Clemson has quickly become a program that no longer surprises anyone by winning big on Signing Day. Though Swinney often recalls the long odds he faced recruiting former quarterback Tajh Boyd to his first full class as head coach — he beat out Ohio State and Oregon to land Boyd out of Virginia — Clemson is poised to take it to even another level after what it accomplished in 2015.

Not only did the Tigers win, but they played an attractive brand of football on both sides of the ball and looked like they had fun doing it, starting with Swinney, who danced and created slogans and came within a few plays of taking Clemson to the mountaintop. Now, he doesn’t have to knock on doors of elite players; they come calling for him. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon.

“What we did this year enhanced our brand,” quarterbacks coach and recruiting coordinator Brandon Streeter said. “Everybody that’s been here in the past, they know how strong it is, but it enhanced our brand by winning and then showing people how we win, and it stems from Coach Swinney. The fun he has and that he brings to this program, it truly goes throughout the program. When kids see that, it helps build the momentum you’re looking for.”

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