Throughout yesterday the recurring theme was that Clemson can’t recruit the OL or that we have not stockpiled talent there. While I would agree we tend to take smaller classes and the on field results haven’t been what we want, I’m not sure I agree we haven’t been getting better at stockpiling talent. Here’s the analysis of what’s on campus currently:
2019 Class
4* Putnam (5.9, #120)
3* Rayburn (5.7)
3* Boateng (5.6)
2020 Class
4* Parks (6.0, #38)
4* Tchio (5.8, #125)
4* Mayes (5.8, #142)
4* Tucker (5.8)
4* Williams (5.8)
3* Howard (5.6)
2021 Class
5* Leigh (6.1, #27)
4* Tate (5.9, #114)
4* Linthicum (5.9, #119)
3* Pennington (5.7)
2022 Class
4* Sadler (5.9, #121)
4* Miller (5.9, #124)
2023 Class
4* Sewell (5.9, #123)
4* Reed (5.9, #174)
4* Owens (5.8)
15 recruited OL on campus. Avg star rating of 3.93. Avg rating of 5.86. 10 of 15 in Top 200 overall.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect it to be that high either. But if you asked me if I’d be good with 15 OL on the roster who were basically four stars I’d say absolutely. You could argue the Rivals ratings and we’ve all discussed whether we are missing on our evals. But I don’t think we can fault the staff for not getting presumably talented players. The facts don’t align with that.
Interestingly as I noted yesterday, the biggest problem seems to be the highly touted 2020 class not making a significant impact (yet?) while also not moving on to allow space to get new guys. As I’ve also said before, though, OL is such a hard position you ideally want your starters to be older. If true and the light starts coming on for the vets then we are on the cusp of the OL talent starting to turn in the right direction. I’m actually pretty high on the OL possibilities this year so we’ll see how it plays out.
2019 Class
4* Putnam (5.9, #120)
3* Boateng (5.6)
2020 Class
4* Parks (6.0, #38)
4* Mayes (5.8, #142)
4* Tucker (5.8)
4* Williams (5.8)
3* Howard (5.6)
2021 Class
5* Leigh (6.1, #27)
4* Tate (5.9, #114)
4* Linthicum (5.9, #119)
3* Pennington (5.7)
2022 Class
4* Sadler (5.9, #121)
4* Miller (5.9, #124)
2023 Class
4* Sewell (5.9, #123)
4* Reed (5.9, #174)
4* Owens (5.8)
15 recruited OL on campus. Avg star rating of 3.93. Avg rating of 5.86. 10 of 15 in Top 200 overall.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect it to be that high either. But if you asked me if I’d be good with 15 OL on the roster who were basically four stars I’d say absolutely. You could argue the Rivals ratings and we’ve all discussed whether we are missing on our evals. But I don’t think we can fault the staff for not getting presumably talented players. The facts don’t align with that.
Interestingly as I noted yesterday, the biggest problem seems to be the highly touted 2020 class not making a significant impact (yet?) while also not moving on to allow space to get new guys. As I’ve also said before, though, OL is such a hard position you ideally want your starters to be older. If true and the light starts coming on for the vets then we are on the cusp of the OL talent starting to turn in the right direction. I’m actually pretty high on the OL possibilities this year so we’ll see how it plays out.
