**** ATTENTION SUBSCRIBERS: You can now read the premium message boards at Gamecockcentral.com, Warchant.com, UGASports.com and other sites in the Rivals.com network. Click HERE to get access to their premium message boards!

****************************************

1. Lightning causes thunder, and it causes delays.

In hindsight, Saturday's strange setting sort of felt analogous to the consequential state of affairs.

It's easy to get caught in the moment, and that often distorts the reality in recruiting.

Big-name teams that actually lose the game go on to win prospects. Relationships matter. The idea that the player is the missing piece sells.

Furthermore, the Tigers could easily proceed from here to look great, run the table, achieve their goals and so forth. And it might surprise you, but most of our candid returns on visitors have been pretty positive.

Yet we also cannot ignore that the first three weeks to the season haven't exactly helped Clemson build the desired momentum to which perhaps we've all grown accustomed.

Win the big game, revel in the popularity. Dominate others at home -- especially the teams you should -- and it leaves an impression on the attending prospects and their families.

Instead, that vibe has a more subdued feel through three games, and you have national television commentators piling on with criticism that questions credibility -- which absolutely will be cited by competing recruiters.

Nothing has snowballed yet. But a watch is in effect.

A season's body of work makes much more of a difference in recruiting than single-game outcomes, and Clemson's story is yet to be written. Moreover, peek outside the vacuum and you'll find Ohio State dealing with comparable struggles. Oklahoma has had nail-biters with both Tulane and Nebraska.

But the early draft to Clemson's story has been rough, pun intended, and when you're recruiting amid elite company, the story can boil down to the details.

The Tigers are slated to play host to some blue-chip targets next month, especially some juniors in the formative stages of their selection.

Winning matters most. But the teams Clemson is recruiting against are all winning, too.

Style points, tenor around the team as well as the Death Valley crowd are going to be substantial variables for the forthcoming home games.

We've all seen what's happened to Clemson.

What's going to reverberate is how the Tigers respond.

Which leads us conveniently to ...

2. As you know, we broke the news early last week that quarterbacks coach Brandon Streeter would be traveling Friday to be on hand for the road game of New Orleans (La.) Isidore Newman five-star quarterback Arch Manning.

Manning (6-3, 180) stands as arguably the most recognized recruit in years because of his familial pedigree, and he projects to be Clemson's bull's-eyed target at the position for as long as the Tigers are in the realistic hunt -- which figures to be until his announced decision.

He subsequently disclosed a string of game visits for the next month, starting with this past weekend's UGA rout of South Carolina.

Alabama gets the next crack Oct. 2 with its home game against Ole Miss, perhaps a statement game involving the Manning legacy school.