The Clemson Insider recently caught up with Tuscarora (Leesburg, Va.) three-star offensive lineman Fletcher Westphal, who has been keeping in touch with Clemson offensive line coach Thomas Austin since he last visited in March.
“I’ve just been catching up since my last visit there to Clemson,” Westphal said. “Just been talking about how school is going, how spring ball’s going. I know he’s supposed to come for a spring practice sometime (this month). We’ve been talking a little bit.”
The fact that Clemson is stopping by his school during the evaluation period proves to Westphal that the Tigers are definitely interested in him going forward.
“I know Clemson — they pick who they want to offer — they don’t offer a lot of people,” he continued. “I know that once you’re on their radar and that’s a good thing. I just hope that (Coach Austin) can come out and see (me) and build more of a relationship with him.
“I went to one of their spring practices and got to see him, coach. He’s very thorough. They got a lot of reps in really quickly…He’s a very good coach. From meeting him on my visit and talking with him on the phone, I know he’s a very funny dude, a very funny guy. He’s very charismatic
Westphal’s recruitment has skyrocketed. He went from having seven offers to 16 in the span of just two months. He currently holds offers from schools like Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Miami, Michigan State, North Carolina, Old Dominion, Penn State, Pitt, Rutgers, Virginia, Virginia Tech, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
“I went on a lot of visits, but it’s something that you don’t really expect and when it happens, it’s a surprise,” Westphal said. “I never walk into a visit expecting an offer. I walk in and expect to be treated like a recruit, get to watch things, look at the facilities, talk to coaches. I never really walk into a place expecting an offer. That’s not the mindset to walk into all of these colleges.”
Right now, Westphal is enjoying the recruitment process and trying to absorb everything he can. He doesn’t know when he’ll start narrowing down his list of schools but estimates that it will probably be by the end of the year.
What are some of the more important factors that Westphal is looking for in a school at the next level?
“When I go on all these visits, after each and every visit, there’s a natural filter that gets created,” he said. “I might go to a school and they get through one or two of those filters, but the third and fourth one, they don’t get through. I can’t really describe them, but I know that one of the top filters is stability.
“As is very well known, Clemson pretty much has the best stability in college football. That is definitely one of my widest, largest filters for all the schools.”
As for camps in the month of June, he’ll be attending a mega camp at both SMU and Houston, as well as camping at the University of Alabama and Auburn. Westphal doesn’t get out of school until June 15, so he’s more limited as far as where he can and can’t camp this summer.
Westphal still has to work out with Austin when he’ll come back down to visit Clemson again. He believes that he’ll be in the area in the month of June and is hopeful that he can make that happen.
“It would definitely be an honor,” Westphal said regarding a potential offer from Clemson. “My family does a lot of research on these colleges…you search up academics, what they’re ranked at as a public school, private school, what their reputation is? Our family wasn’t super big into college football before, so we didn’t know a lot of this stuff. Clemson, I mean, they’re definitely up there.”
Westphal (6-8, 320) currently ranks as the No. 14 offensive tackle and the nation’s No. 247 prospect in the 2023 class, per the 247Sports Composite rankings.
— Photo for this article courtesy of Fletcher Westphal.
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