How South Carolina and Clemson are adjusting to a new recruiting landscape
Shane Beamer’s map is filling up.
Speaking with reporters last Wednesday, Beamer laughed as he ran through his recent travel itinerary. There were stops in Florida and Georgia. Virginia and South Carolina are on the list, too.
USC’s first-year head coach had been to seven different states in recent weeks for recruiting. He was en route to a eighth after a bowl press conference wrapped up.
“Busy time,” Beamer quipped.
In a matter of five years, college football recruiting has been flipped on its head. The early signing period has shifted the recruiting calendar by nearly two months. The transfer portal has added a variation of free agency to a sport that’s tried to avoid modernization for decades.
How are these changes affecting the state’s biggest football programs? It’s a mixed bag, but both Clemson and South Carolina are adapting to the changing landscape.
“We both have the same problems when it comes to our recruiting base,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said at a Nov. 23 press conference. The state of South Carolina has “a small population when it comes to football players. Atlanta has got more people than the whole state of South Carolina. Then you’ve got to throw in winning in the SEC and the ACC — you’ve got to be a good enough player for that level of competition. Then you throw in a position need, academics, fit, all that stuff, that pool gets even smaller.”
A signing period in December
The early signing period, at its core, was developed to allow players who have been committed to schools for extended time periods to sign long before the traditional National Signing Day in February.
With the shift starting in 2017 to an early signing period in mid-December, coaches and players accelerated their recruiting clocks to accommodate both parties. This year’s early period begins Wednesday.
The busy time for recruiting only gets more complicated when it collides with coaching changes across the sport.
“I don’t know what the right move is,” Rivals national recruiting analyst Sam Spiegelman told The State. “But if the coaching carousel is going to resemble 2021 ever again, it certainly kind of mitigates the positives of the early signing period, because kids are either going to make a rash decision or they’re going to end up in the transfer portal because they were rushed to make a decision.”
Schools are currently allowed to sign 25 players per signing class under NCAA rules. As of Sunday, South Carolina’s class included 19 high school commitments and one player whose transfer will count toward this year’s total. Assuming all 19 of those high school prospects sign, that will leave just five spots USC can fill between now and February.
Beamer a week ago declared himself a big fan of the early signing period — in large part because coaches no longer have to spend so much energy in December and January making sure recruits stay committed and sign in February.
“I love it,” he said. “I don’t know if every coach feels that way, but I do.”
Clemson, by contrast, has taken a different approach to recruiting than most schools. Swinney and his staff are known for not offering players before their junior years. The Tigers in some recruiting cycles stay well under that max of 25 signees. And they have taken few transfers — junior college or otherwise — under Swinney.
That said, Clemson has stacked up against the best in college football’s ongoing recruiting war. The Tigers have signed back-to-back top five classes nationally, according to the 247Sports Composite. Clemson has also signed just one class slotted lower than 11th nationally since 2015.
That stability, though, has been challenged of late after the departures of offensive coordinator Tony Elliott and Brent Venables, who took head coaching jobs at Virginia and Oklahoma, respectively.
The Tigers’ 2022 class currently stands at 12 commitments after the IMG Academy contingent of Daylen Everette, Keon Sabb and Jihaad Campbell all reopened their recruitment this past week. The class ranks No. 14 nationally — which would be Clemson’s lowest recruiting finish since 2017.
On top of that, nine Tigers have entered the transfer portal since the season started — including a quarterback, two running backs and two receivers.
“You hear things about guys on the roster, you hear things about players that are committed at this point,” Rivals national recruiting analyst and rankings director Adam Friedman told The State when asked how coaching changes might affect Clemson. “And I think Wednesday will be interesting to see which (prospects) end up signing with all these rumors swirling around. Things can get a little a little weird this time of year.”
Why the transfer portal matters for South Carolina
Whereas Swinney and his staff have chosen not to take transfers, Beamer and South Carolina have attacked the transfer portal as hard as any school in the country.
247Sports unveiled a new set of rankings last week that included grades for transfers and how those factor into a signing class as a whole. The company did so, in part, as a response to Beamer’s comments about USC’s 13-member 2021 class ranking No. 79 nationally — a finish that didn’t factor in the school’s heavy transfer haul.
“When you look at our signing class numbers and rankings, yes, it’s small. It’s low. That was on purpose,” Beamer said in his National Signing Day press conference in February. “No one talks about — when you talk about the signing class and rankings and things like that — the guys that transferred in from other places that are fantastic football players that are going to help this team immediately
A player being able to transfer isn’t new to the sport, but the launch of the transfer portal in 2018 added a certain formality — and much more publicity — to the process. The NCAA’s decision in the last offseason to allow athletes to transfer once without having to sit out a year made the portal that much more of an attractive option for players and schools.
The Gamecocks brought in 10 transfers a season ago and seem slated to bring in a heavy number of outside imports once more. Of those 10, six proved to be contributors.
Carlins Platel (Assumption University) and David Spaulding (Georgia Southern) both played ample snaps in the secondary. Defensive lineman Jordan Strachan — who tied for the FBS lead in sacks at Georgia State in 2020 — added a nice complementary piece in the trenches for the Gamecocks.
St. Francis (Pennsylvania) transfers Jason Brown and E.J. Jenkins also had their moments after transferring from the FCS level to the Southeastern Conference. Brown, in particular, helped South Carolina get bowl eligible with wins over Florida and Auburn over his four starts this season.
“I can’t even put into words how I feel right now,” Brown said after the win over Florida. “It’s just an unreal feeling. Just think about it: I was a third-team guy for a while, and I just kept preparing as though I was the starter.”
There’s an added element this year intended to help with roster management: College football teams can replace up to seven departing transfers with incoming transfers. South Carolina has lost four players to the portal since the end of the regular season and six overall since the season began.
Swinney — who’s long been opposed to taking transfers — seems to be more open to the idea of using the transfer portal. The Tigers have lost five players via transfer since the season ended, including QB Taisun Phommachanh and receivers Frank Ladson and Ajou Ajou.
“As I’ve said many times, we’ll use the portal if it’s something that we have to,” Swinney said after Clemson’s 30-0 win over South Carolina. “It’s not been a need for us at this point. If it ever becomes a need, we’ll address it strategically, right fit and all that.
... We’re always going to be a developmental program, and if we can’t address a need through high school kids and there’s a gap somewhere, we’ll always look at that as an option. But only if it’s something that we need.”
South Carolina, Clemson closing in on early signing period
Clemson and South Carolina are putting the finishing touches on their respective recruiting classes ahead of the early signing period.
The Tigers are working to stop the fallout from the departures of Venables and Elliott and hoping to add a few more prospects before the period closes on Friday.
Beamer’s staff remains in on a handful of top-line prospects and feels poised to add a few more names this week. Their 2022 class ranks No. 16 nationally and eighth in the SEC after the recent pledges from defensive lineman D’Andre Martin and linebacker Jaishawn Barham — the latter of whom is the highest-rated recruit to commit to South Carolina since Beamer took over.
“Being able to get out and hear so many people that just stopped and congratulated us on the season that we had and the way that we play (has been great),” Beamer said following South Carolina’s bowl announcement on Dec. 5. “Really cool just hearing from other college coaches that I’ve bumped into or high school coaches that talked about the effort we play with in the fight that our guys play with and the passion that our guys play with.”
How these classes shape up remains to be seen. The transfer portal continues to swirl. High school prospects that don’t sign early can still ink with schools come February.
In the meantime, Beamer and Swinney added a few more states to their cross-country travels as they chase the next wave of college football’s elite prospects.
This story was originally published December 13, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
