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1. The kickoff for football season also means the start of the second half for Clemson’s recruiting season.

As reinforced by this feature’s traditional hiatus for a few weeks, August is a dead recruiting period in several senses of the term.

The NCAA no longer permits prospects to visit coaches during the month, nor can coaches initiate calls to recruits. Communication to rising seniors remains basically limited to social media direct messaging, and even then, Clemson's staff takes its foot off the gas.

The coaches focus on their team for this month while enabling the high-schoolers to do the same. Little is really going to change when there’s no chance for a visit, and what’s going to be different in August when recruiting has been going full bore for many months leading up.

It’s been time to pause, refresh and reset.

So let’s do the same.