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1. Well, that made for an interesting weekend.

Over the years it hasn't been often that Clemson experience a recruiting pick-me-up for the fall-out that ensues the rare team defeat.

The marathon for this recruiting class ends with the traditional Feb. 3 National Signing Day, and now having largely run their race, the Tigers jumped three spots to No. 4 in the Rivals.com team rankings with Saturday’s formal five-star addition.

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As we characterized at the end of last week’s edition, that amounts to treating this as a really good class to framing this haul as a great class.

Maybe the group doesn’t feature a generation talent, at least not one the industry predicts to be.

Yet in our eye, the goal and standard is to maintain membership among the handful of elite programs.

And four top-five recruiting finishes in the last five years is how you give yourself the chance, especially when you’re keeping up with the Joneses – Alabama and Ohio State.