An in-state offensive line product, who shined at and participated in the Dabo Swinney Camp back in June, picked up a preferred walk-on offer from Clemson.
Piedmont (S.C.) Wren High School’s Jake Norris — a 6-foot-3, 265-pound offensive lineman in the class of 2023 — returned to campus earlier this summer after attending a game day visit at Memorial Stadium last season
“It was a great experience, it really was,” Norris recently told The Clemson Insider in a phone interview. “I went to the camp in June. I learned a lot of things. Coach (Thomas) Austin is a great guy. It really was a truly great experience.”
“It’s like any other school,” he continued. “Most camps you go to, you run a 40-yard-dash, you do a combine, but at Clemson, you just go and see how it is to be a Clemson football player, really. It’s mostly about the culture that they have there at Clemson.”
Norris told us that he received good feedback from Austin and that Clemson’s first-year offensive line coach seemed to know everything that there is to know about the offensive line and that he’s a “very stand-up guy.”
Following his participation in June’s Swinney Camp, in which he worked out at the center position and both guard spots, Norris had a meeting with Clemson’s head coach.
It was there that Swinney presented Norris with a PWO offer. According to Norris, Swinney acknowledged that while Norris is currently going through the recruitment process, the Tigers would love to have him at Clemson as a PWO player.
“I’ve been a Clemson fan my entire life,” Norris said. “I grew up going to all the games. It’s really been a goal to get to this point. I guess I’ll see what happens from here.”
Norris said he’ll definitely consider the way Clemson treats its preferred walk-ons, which is pretty different from any other program in the country. Norris has some friends who are PWO athletes at Clemson and they’ve told him that they get treated exactly the same as everyone else.
“It really doesn’t make a difference how they treat their PWO players at Clemson,” he said.
Norris has a big senior year coming up, which he said is what’s really gonna make the difference for him, and is excited to see how his process eventually plays out. As far as his recruitment is concerned, Norris said he’s been receiving interest from schools like The Citadel, South Carolina, Wofford and a couple of small out-of-state programs.
Norris is familiar with a lot of Clemson players because he is a Train Built Performance product, like a lot of other current Tigers. Norris told us that he’s close friends with Clemson freshman offensive lineman Collin Sadler, among others.
He learned from Coach Lamb how to play just about every position on the offensive line.
“I’m a hard worker, very aggressive and I’m a great leader, ” Norris said when asked to describe himself as a player. “I try my best on everything.”
— Photo for this article courtesy of Jake Norris.
After a talk with coach Swinney I’m blessed to recieve a PWO from @clemsonfb ! #allin 🐅@Coach__TA @OLCoachCaldwell @train0187 @TatejCoach pic.twitter.com/hVhsUDJx1r
— Jake Norris (@Jake_Norris55) June 12, 2022