Recruiting is inherently imperfect.

You're going to have losses. You're going to have misses.

It's impossible to acquire, and much less keep, a perfect situation at a single position. That's been compounded by the NIL free agency era.

The trick, of course, is minimizing negative trending. As with anything in life, it's less about what happens to you and more about how you respond. They make more players, as we like to say.

So every cycle there are realms that elicit concern from fans, and such anxiety can be logical and reasonable.

Clemson's hot-button subject at the moment is defensive end recruiting.

CLEMSON's LONG GAME IN RECRUITING (For subscribers-only)

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