A peaking Clemson recruiting class provides elite foundation
CLEMSON, S.C. — He was basically a nobody back then, a guy known and appreciated for his enthusiasm, but rarely taken seriously when he pushed and prodded the Clemson coaching staff to go out and recruit the best players in the country.
While so many ingrained in the Clemson culture were conceding the five-stars to the splashier programs, Dabo Swinney — then just a recruiting coordinator and wide receivers coach under Tommy Bowden — was going head-to-head with Florida, Florida State and Miami, determined to pull the best running back in the country right out of their back yard.
"There was a mentality when I came that here we couldn't get the C.J. Spillers, and I just never bought into that," Swinney said. "I was like, why not? Why can't we sign C.J. Spiller? I text him every week, he wants to come visit, and if we get him here we have a shot because Clemson is special. My mentality back then is if we can land a player like C.J. Spiller and he has success then hey, we'll have a shot with another one and another one and another one."
On Wednesday morning, Swinney sent Spiller another text, reminding him that nine years had passed since he signed with Clemson and everything that followed can be traced back to that day.
It has taken time and evolution and a track record of success, but Swinney's prediction that Spiller would open the floodgates for elite players coming to Clemson has been realized in a major way.
Regardless of which scouting service you looked at Wednesday, nearly all of them ranked Clemson's class in the top 10, some even in the top five. Regardless, it was a major haul with a pair of five-star skill players from Florida in running back Ray-Ray McCloud and receiver Deon Cain, a consensus top-five defensive tackle in Christian Wilkins and a top-three offensive tackle prospect in Mitch Hyatt among the 26 signees.
Since Swinney became permanent head coach following the 2008 season, Clemson has recruited blue-chip stars like Sammy Watkins, Stephone Anthony and Deshaun Watson, but never this many in the same year. And now, after going 42-11 the past four seasons, Swinney believes this could be the class that lifts Clemson from fringe contender status to among the elite programs in the country.
"I don't have any doubt when we look back four-to-five years from now, this group of players has potential that is very special," Swinney said. "We're trying to be the best, get to the very top and if we continue to be about the right things, we'll get where we need to be and it's going to be a lot of fun when we do."
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From a perception standpoint, few programs have come as far as quickly as Clemson. Once dismissed as a fraud that got by against the ACC's weak sisters but gagged on the big stage, the Tigers have beaten Oklahoma, Ohio State, Georgia and LSU the past three seasons and haven't lost to a team outside the top 25 since N.C. State in 2011. That's not an accident.
At this point, the only negative marks on Swinney's tenure are his 2-5 record against South Carolina and the fact that two of the best teams in Clemson history played in the same division as Florida State teams that won the national title in 2013 and got to the College Football Playoff in 2014.
The Florida State problem isn't going away anytime soon, but at least from a talent standpoint, the gap doesn't appear to be getting wider anymore. Even when the Tigers had Tajh Boyd as a senior quarterback and Watkins playing receiver in 2013, the Seminoles outclassed Clemson at practically every position. When they meet next year and the year after that, the rosters will be much closer to even.
Part of the reason for that is Swinney's insistence on streamlining and modernizing the program's recruiting operation in the past couple years. Clemson has spent millions in the last half-decade building facilities that can match almost anyone in the country, but until Swinney lured Thad Turnipseed from Alabama to oversee what he calls "Clemson Google," he still felt like they were inefficient and behind their competitors.
Though Turnipseed hasn't replicated Alabama's player personnel department, which includes 16 operations coordinators, player development directors and football analysts — "We're definitely a lot smaller, but we're exactly what we need," Turnipseed said — Clemson now has a staff of people dedicated to the logistical side of recruiting, encompassing everything from recruiting schedules to creating graphics for recruits.
Turnipseed, whose official title is director of recruiting and external affairs, also helped guide Swinney through the process of renovating the players lounge and improving the locker room and got a $260,000 budget increase to buy more recruiting software, secure more private plane time for coaches to recruit and improve their mailed recruiting materials.
"Everything that used to be done in my office with maybe one student assistant has been replaced by Thad and his assistants that work back there all the time (on recruiting)," said Jeff Scott, who has been Clemson's recruiting coordinator since 2008 but will move up to offensive coordinator in 2015.
"A lot of times I was doing wide receiver stuff and at lunch I'd go in for 90 minutes and do recruiting, then go to practice. At some point you're turning one off to turn the other one on and recruiting had gotten so big we needed someone to come in and do nothing but recruiting full time, and it's allowed us to really take that next step."
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And from where Clemson has been the past few years, the only step left is the biggest of all. This program doesn't have the budget of Alabama, the cachet of Southern Cal or the captive recruiting base of a place like LSU or Ohio State.
It's still a grind to get the best players in the country to pick Clemson, but each year more and more are interested and now more and more are coming. After six full years under Swinney, there's no need to beg recruits to take a leap of faith or sell promises of success sometime down the road.
Unlike when he was in Tajh Boyd's living room, convincing him to put his future in the hands of an unproven coach while Oregon's Mike Bellotti and Ohio State's Jim Tressel were waiting out front, Swinney is no longer the scrappy lightweight in any recruiting battle.
"It's night and day because now you have performance and not just potential," Swinney said. "I wouldn't be right here if it wasn't for C.J. Spiller, so just one by one, a little piece here, a little piece there, but now six years in we do have a track record. We have a level of consistency that is special, and it's awesome to see our brand nationally relevant and that's been my goal. I never dreamed of just trying to be relevant in the ACC. That's important, but we want to be nationally relevant a team that is going to be in the mix for the longer term."
From the looks of what Clemson accomplished on Signing Day 2015, the Tigers won't be out of the mix anytime soon.
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