Dabo flexes his muscle over Clemson’s attractiveness to recruits
Recruiting has changed drastically over the past couple of years with the addition of the early signing period.
Instead of recruits waiting until February to sign with a school, the majority are now signing in December. Clemson has already signed 27 players during the early signing period and has only a couple of spots remaining for the class of 2019.
With players signing earlier that means the decision making process is starting earlier. Prospects are now allowed to take official visits during the spring of their junior years. That practice is becoming more and more common ... just not at Clemson.
Tigers coach Dabo Swinney made it clear on Wednesday, the first day of the early signing period for 2019, that if a recruit is going to visit Clemson during the spring it will be of the “unofficial” variety. That means the recruit and his family will pay for the trip, as opposed to an official visit that is funded by the school.
“It’s easy to get on a plane and fly,” Swinney said. “You may not have any interest in Clemson whatsoever, but if Clemson calls and they want to pay for you to come and feed you and put you in a hotel, well who doesn’t want to go do that? Sign me up.”
Recruits still get five official visits they can take and can only visit an individual school officially once. Before the accelerated recruiting calendar kicked in, those official visits used to take place in the fall or winter of a prospect’s senior year.
“If they’re really interested in Clemson then they’re going to come here unofficially on their own,” Swinney said. “And so my message to the staff was, ‘If they won’t come unofficially they’re not going to come for four years.’ ”
Swinney cited a couple of players from the class of 2019 that chose to visit Clemson unofficially during the spring of 2018 before committing to the Tigers.
Defensive end Etinosa Reuben of Missouri took official visits to Georgia, Wisconsin and Ohio State during the summer before taking an unofficial visit to Clemson in July and committing to the Tigers then.
Linebacker Bryton Constantin of Baton Rouge, La., took an unofficial visit to Clemson on April 13 and committed to the Tigers while on the trip.
Swinney acknowledged that the Tigers probably could not have taken this approach 10 years ago when Clemson was trying to build itself up as a program. With the Tigers now in the College Football Playoff for the fourth consecutive year after having won four consecutive ACC titles, Clemson can afford to do things a little differently.
“I think when a guy comes unofficially, then he to me is sending you a message that, ‘You know what? Hey, I’m interested in Clemson.’ Now he may hate it when he gets here. But at least he came on his own. That’s just my personal philosophy,” Swinney said. “To me it’s how I protect our program. It’s how I protect our culture. I’m not trying to be like everybody else. I want to be Clemson. And Clemson’s not for everybody. I understand that and I get that. But I want it to be a two-way street and I want them to want to be here.”
