Dabo Swinney has adjusted to the changing college football recruiting landscape, and one change that Clemson’s head coach made to his program’s recruiting policy has already paid off for the Tigers in a big way.
For the first time in Swinney’s tenure, Clemson played host to official visitors on campus in the month of June — something the Tigers hadn’t done in the past, thus marking a significant change to one of his policies.
Of course, Swinney and the Tigers have always welcomed official visitors in the fall. However, Swinney had previously been reluctant to bring in summer official visitors, in large part because from his perspective, he believed prospects who were legitimately interested in Clemson would figure out a way to make it to campus during the spring or summer on their own dime as unofficial visitors — or wait until the fall to take official visits paid for by the school.
But this year, Swinney changed with the times, allowing prospects who had already been on campus at some point in the past for unofficial visits to go ahead and take official visits during one weekend in June. That resulted in a huge official visit weekend from June 3-5, when the Tigers hosted more than two dozen recruits in the 2023 class.
“It’s only going to be for kids who have been on campus, so we really haven’t changed that part of it,” Swinney told The Clemson Insider at a Prowl & Growl event in April. “The only guys that are going to be coming in on an official visit will be people who’ve been to Clemson at some point, whether it be a game last year or they came this spring or they were in our camp, and we’ve got camps coming up. So that part of it, the actual official visit part will be a little different.”
Swinney’s Tigers have already started to reap the rewards of that change in policy and the big official visit weekend.
Of the nine prospects that have publicly pledged to Clemson in June, six of those were on campus as official visitors during the June 3-5 weekend: First Baptist Academy (Naples, Fla.) four-star tight end Olsen Patt Henry, Vandegrift (Austin, Texas) four-star offensive tackle Ian Reed, Sumner (Riverview, Fla.) four-star safety Kylen Webb, Mill Creek (Hoschton, Ga.) four-star linebacker Jamal Anderson, Archbishop Wood (Warminster, Pa.) three-star tight end Markus Dixon and Demark (Alpharetta, Ga.) four-star linebacker Dee Crayton.
With those additions, Clemson’s 2023 class is currently ranked No. 3 nationally in the 247Sports Composite team rankings and No. 4 nationally by Rivals.
Swinney expected the official visit weekend in June to provide Clemson with positive momentum going into the Swinney Camps, coming out of the camps, and going into the dead period this summer.
“I think it will be a really, really good weekend for us and give us good momentum going into camps, coming out of camps, going into the dead period in the summer,” he said. “And a lot of these kids want to get it out of the way. They want to make their decisions. So, that’s been I think a good change for us.”
That was echoed by Crayton, who verbally pledged to the Tigers this past Saturday. The Peach State linebacker praised Clemson’s recruiting efforts and indicated that having the official visit weekend at the beginning of the month, has directly correlated to the Tigers gaining all this momentum on the recruiting trail.
“The official was crazy,” Crayton said. “If players go to other schools or they see other officials, they’re comparing the Clemson official at the beginning of the month — the only one they had in the summer — they’re comparing it to other schools and they’re realizing that that’s really the standard and how at home they made us feel. That’s very smart what they did, doing it at the beginning of the summer.”
Crayton committed to Swinney on June 7 but didn’t publically disclose his decision for another 11 days. In the meantime, he did not take his other scheduled official visits to Auburn, Penn State, Missouri and UCF.
“Most of the commits, they canceled their (other) officials or they didn’t even take the officials, like myself,” Crayton continued, “because they knew that’s the best it was gonna get. They set everything and everything was organized. It was great bonding with those other top players and most of that official group is gonna commit, just stay tuned for the ones that do and the ones that don’t, we wish them the best, but it’s definitely going to be a great class.”
If what Clemson has been able to accomplish this month is an indication of things going forward, it’s more than likely that official visit weekend will be a permanent fixture on the recruiting calendar going forward.
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