It’s been a very long week in Clemson football, and I Bleed Orange is ready to give you updates on it all! We’ll start with some recruitment news, where we’ve been both hot and cold. From there we’ll discuss the new changes to the NCAA, and how they can possibly affect a program like Clemson. We’ll finish off with an update on one of our defensive linemen Tigers, who was charged with marijuana possession this past weekend.
It’s no secret that our Tigers have struggled in the past years with recruiting on the offensive line, and it appears as though we continue with that bad luck for the 2025 class. Top recruit David Sanders Jr, who was once crystalballed to Clemson, has recently removed the Tigers from his list of interests. This puts us at a stalemate with offensive line recruits, as we don’t quite have the roster space to have people lining up on the depth chart. Clemson already has 3 OL commits for the 2025 class, so we can expect to see them focus their interests on different positions before closing out this year’s recruitment process. They started to pick up heat with 4 Star DL Bryce Davis, who committed just last week. This is a huge pickup for us, however it should’ve been expected, as we’ve always recruited well on the defensive line. Davis ranks in as a Top 100 Player in the Nation, and he’ll be a key player on the Tiger defense when his time comes. We stayed hot with the defensive recruits, securing ILB Logan Anderson a few days later. Anderson currently sits as a 4-star recruit with a strong commitment to the Tigers.
The next story we have for you is regarding the NCAA, as they have made some rule changes for this upcoming season. The commission plans to increase the scholarship limit from 85 to 105, but this number would also be the maximum roster size. This means that every player on the roster would be on scholarship, and the story of a walk-on changing a program around becomes no more. It also states that players can receive partial scholarships now, which may lead to more difficulty in securing recruits down the line. For Clemson, this rule change hits home. Many of you know that head coach Dabo Swinney is a former walk-on himself, and there have been many great walk-ons to come through this program since adding him to the coaching staff in 2008. The most memorable comes in WR Hunter Renfrow, who single-handedly took over the league in receiving stats while at Clemson. He also caught the game-winning touchdown against Alabama in the 2016 National Championship, before moving on to the NFL in 2019. One advantage that the Tigers have is their limited, if not absent, use of the transfer portal. With scholarships and roster sizes already thinning down, it’ll be easier to not have to worry about an extra player coming through from a different program.
Last weekend, Clemson Tigers defensive lineman Caden Story was charged with marijuana possession. The Tigers have refused to speak on the situation, but with the recent rule changes of the NCAA, he will not be formally punished. This doesn’t mean that he won’t be punished within the program, whether by Dabo or Story’s respective position coach. We will be on the lookout for more updates on this, and if Story will plan to play this upcoming season.
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Written by: Brandon Cannady
