A standout local prospect and Clemson legacy recruit on the Tigers’ radar returned to campus earlier this summer.
Daniel High School’s Eli Merck, a 6-foot-1, 195-pound wide receiver in the class of 2023, participated in the Dabo Swinney Camp on June 2.
“I went the full day. It was good,” Merck said of his Swinney Camp experience in a recent interview with The Clemson Insider. “I got a lot of work in. Got to compete in the Orange group, I believe, with Coach Grish (wide receivers coach Tyler Grisham). Overall, it was just a great day.”
What kind of feedback did Merck get from Grisham regarding his camp performance?
“He likes the way I run routes and catch the ball clean,” Merck said. “Like I said, it was just a great day to go out there and learn more and get better.”
It marked the second consecutive summer that Merck has camped at Clemson, and he cited the best part of this year’s camp as “probably just being able to compete with the highest level there.”
“There was a bunch of great quarterbacks, great wide receivers there, and I just got to learn a lot,” he added.
Along with Grisham, Merck had the chance to work at the camp with Swinney, who of course was a wide receiver at Alabama and served as Clemson’s receivers coach before becoming the head coach.
“Coach Swinney came over there and coached me up on a couple of drills that we were doing,” Merck said. “I know he was a wide receiver and wide receiver coach at one point, so he knows a lot about how to do things at the wide receiver position. So, that was helpful, too.”
In addition to Clemson, schools such as Charlotte, Liberty and Mercer (to name a few) have shown interest in Merck, who surpassed 1,000 yards receiving as both a sophomore in 2020 and junior in 2021 and has accounted for 31 touchdown receptions over his past two campaigns.
Merck’s grandfather, Oscar Thorsland, was a tight end for the Tigers back in the day, and living basically in Clemson’s backyard and attending high school just a few miles away from the university’s campus, Merck has grown up a fan of the Tigers.
So, the interest Merck has received from Clemson certainly means a lot to him, and he’d love to have the opportunity to suit up for Swinney and the Tigers in the future.
“They’re still showing interest. And hometown team, it’s always going to be a big interest for me to go there,” he said. “It’s just a great school, great football.”
Merck attended Clemson’s spring game on April 9 as an unofficial visitor and anticipates returning to Tiger Town for at least one game during the upcoming season.
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