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1. There are still important developments and decisions to come for this class, so Clemson hasn’t turned the page on this cycle already by any means.
But as we indicated going in, the last month stood to be significant for the Tigers laying their foundation for the next haul.
As many of you know, we cast Clemson as taking a contrasting approach to most of the field.
Offers are equivalent to business cards these days, and as such prospects and their camps don’t feel a college is interested until it has “offered.” Thus most of their competitors dispense them freely and without regard to credibility.
Look, no one can give only so-called committable offers, just as no parent would recommend his child apply to just one college. You want to create options to ensure one will come through.
But when you now have a bunch of teams exceeding 300 offers in a cycle, it amounts to teams depreciating their own word and offer value. There are plenty of folks who think Rivals.com should rank prospects based on offer sheets, or a recruit merits certain stature because a high-profile program has offered.
Alabama, the gold standard in recruiting this decade, has offered somewhere between 215 and 245 prospects in this class. Does that mean our entire Rivals250 should just be sorting the Tide's offers – most of which were conveyed with the addendum that the prospect would actually have to compete at the Tide’s camp to try and make the offer real?
We say all of that to get to this: Clemson had no more than a handful of legit 2021 offers on the table this spring. For all intents and purposes, the first wave of credible offers were to begin going out once the spring evaluation period concluded and as the Tigers got further evaluations from the Dabo Swinney Camp the last two weeks.
Since kicking off with Pinson (Ala.) Valley four-star athlete Ga’Quincy McKinstry on May 24, Clemson's staff has offered 30 rising junior prospects over the last month.
Check out the difference already in 2021 offers (totals per the Rivals.com database):
Tennessee 170
