After Peter Woods committed to Clemson on Friday night, the number of reactions his commitment generated on social media said a lot about how big a deal it is that the Tigers were able to beat out Alabama for the five-star defensive lineman from the Crimson Tide’s backyard.
If you scrolled through Twitter after Woods announced his verbal pledge to Dabo Swinney’s program during a commitment ceremony at his high school, you know the bird app was really buzzing with a slew of posts about the Tigers’ addition of the Thompson High School (Alabaster, Ala.) star.
And rightfully so. Woods represents a major coup for Swinney and Clemson, which bested Saban and Bama to get the blue-chip recruit who ranks as the nation’s No. 3 defensive lineman and No. 23 overall prospect in the country for the 2023 class, per the 247Sports Composite rankings.
With Woods now on board, Clemson’s 2023 class currently checks in at No. 3 nationally in the 247Sports team recruiting rankings behind only Notre Dame and Ohio State, respectively.
Nearly a third of the total commits (five of 17) in Clemson’s 2023 class are defensive linemen, with Woods joining Vic Burley, AJ Hoffler, David Ojiegbe and Stephiylan Green in the class.
It’s certainly a special group that defensive tackles coach Nick Eason and ends coach Lemanski Hall have helped the Tigers put together, hoping to mitigate the losses that will come from those respective position groups following the 2022 season.
Woods and Burley are both ranked as top-50 national prospects regardless of position per the 247Sports Composite, while Hoffler, Ojiegbe and Green are all highly regarded as well as top-215 national recruits according to at least one service or another.
You have to look back a few cycles to find the last time Clemson brought in as touted a bunch of defensive linemen as this group — the 2020 class which featured Bryan Bresee and Myles Murphy, now a pair of projected top picks in the 2023 NFL Draft, along with a couple of former top-100 national prospects in Demonte Capehart and Tre Williams.
Of course, Clemson has consistently recruited at a high level with defensive linemen, and that has led to the Tigers fielding high-caliber units like the Power Rangers with Christian Wilkins, Dexter Lawrence, Clelin Ferrell and Austin Bryant, and the one Clemson fans will get to enjoy watching this season in The Avengers with Bresee, Murphy, Xavier Thomas, K.J. Henry and Tyler Davis among others.
But if you ask Clemson’s new five-star commitment, is the future of the Tigers’ defensive line even brighter with the group coming in as part of the 2023 class?
“This is about to be the best d-line group that you will ever see,” Woods told The Clemson Insider. “We’re gonna come in and we’re gonna work. We’re all on the same page and we’re ready to grind. We’re gonna be the best ones.”
Prior to this cycle, Clemson’s coaching staff took a lot of heat after missing out on several top targets in the class of 2022.
The groans only continued after Jihaad Campbell elected to walk back his verbal pledge just a few days before the early signing period. Campbell, who is now enrolled at the University of Alabama, decommitted from Clemson after Brent Venables left for Oklahoma.
Even before Todd Bates followed Venables to Norman, he wasn’t able to secure any defensive tackles in the 2022 class. While Clemson certainly had more spots for the current rising senior class, Bates was only able to secure a commitment from Payton Page in an 18-month period.
Enter Eason.
Even after he left his post at Auburn University, Eason never stopped recruiting Caden Story. It wasn’t too long thereafter that the four-star defensive tackle out of Lannett (Ala.) followed his lead recruiter to Tiger Town.
Eason didn’t let up after Story.
No, he was only getting started and starting his own story — no pun intended — as a recruiter at Clemson. Adding players like Burley, Green and now Woods only proves that notion and helps put the cherry on top of a star-studded class.
Adding top talent to the defensive line has always been important to a program that dons the moniker “DLU.”
Those who were worried about Clemson’s defensive line recruiting might have to walk back some of their early frustrations, as the Tigers have quickly and not so quietly added one of the top defensive line hauls in the country to their 2023 class.
— Photo for this article courtesy of Stephiylan Green (@stephiylan) on Twitter.
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