Believe it or not, the transfer portal played a part in Clemson’s 2022 recruiting class.
Yes, the Tigers only signed one transfer in Hunter Johnson, who Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney referred to as a “boomerang portal guy,” but the pool of high school players available in the month of February is due to what the transfer portal has become.
Clemson wouldn’t have been able to sign some of its signees yesterday in past years. Prospects like Myles Oliver, Cole Turner, Jahiem Lawson and Kobe McCloud all saw their recruitments directly affected by the portal.
That’s exactly what happened with Oliver, the three-star cornerback out of Douglas County (Villa Rica, Ga.).
The Clemson Insider has spoken with Oliver’s head coach at Douglas County, Johnny T. White, on multiple occasions. White revealed to us that there were numerous teams who passed on recruiting Oliver — in order to recruit the portal instead — and once his recruitment took off, they tried to circle back around.
During his National Signing Day press conference, Swinney used McCloud’s recruitment as a prime example. After watching Ray-Ray McCloud make some crucial plays in a game for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Clemson’s head coach was making conversation with McCloud’s father, Ray, and asked him where Kobe had decided to sign.
As we now know, Kobe had originally committed to Florida International University but opted not to sign during the early signing period because he had a lot of things coming his way and didn’t really know what he wanted to do.
Kobe took the month of January to figure some things out. That, of course, led to him signing with Clemson on NSD.
“That’s gonna be more and more the story, to be honest with you,” Swinney said Wednesday, “because there’s not many high school kids getting recruited. In fact, a couple of years ago, a lot of these guys that we just signed, they wouldn’t be here to sign.
“It’s good and bad. It’s good that there’s a bigger pool of high school kids to recruit, but it’s bad because you got a lot of high school kids getting the opportunities that they got a couple of years ago and you got a lot of them that are having to go mid-year too, whether they want to or not.”
Swinney acknowledged that Clemson was pretty fortunate to have the finish to the 2022 recruiting class that it did.
Time to get the latest Clemson apparel to show your Tiger pride. Order your officially licensed Clemson gear right here!
