Matt Luke wants to build his offensive line through recruiting

Luke wants to continue to build through high school recruiting (Photo by Merrell Mann).

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Fri Feb 16 07:00:03 GMT-04:00 2024

Matt Luke has been a member of the Clemson coaching staff for just over two months, and he’s already coached in a bowl game and landed top-notch talent on the recruiting trail. And it’s on the recruiting trail where he wants to continue to land talent.

Luke wasn’t on staff for very long before he helped add the final offensive line member of the 2024 recruiting class in Elyjah Thurmon, a 4-star out of Hinesville (GA) Bradwell Institute. Following Clemson’s Elite Junior Day in late January, the Tigers landed two more elite linemen in Jaylan Beckley of Addison (TX) Trinity Christian Academy and Brayden Jacobs, a 4-star out of Alpharetta (GA) Buford.

Both already have the size Luke is looking for – Jacobs is 6-7, 310 pounds, and Beckley is 6-4 290.

In the current landscape of college football, teams are rebuilding faster than ever, thanks to the transfer portal. Teams can add experienced players who have already seen playing time at the collegiate level and at a position like the offensive line, which can be invaluable.

Luke, however, wants to continue to recruit and develop his own players, and that is a perfect fit with head coach Dabo Swinney. However, he’s also not averse to using the portal.

“I think you're always looking for high school players, and that's the way this program has been built. You're taking a freshman, you're building them,” Luke said. “This is about the complete person with the Paw journey and all the things that they do here that are special. But in this day and age, if there is a guy that can come help us, especially if a guy that's transferring, that's got multiple years where we can develop him, that's even better. I don't think you're necessarily looking for a guy to come in and plug and play because we have good players. But anybody we can have come in and develop, I think that's what we're looking for.”

Luke said he knows he will spend a lot of time evaluating the talent he has on hand while also trying to prepare for the future.

“I think you have to really do a really good job of evaluating,” Luke said. “For me, the challenge is, okay, what do we have here?. So what do we have here versus what are we looking for? You got to see next year, but what about two years down the road, three years down the road? How are we building this thing and building your roster? I think that the challenge for me is, okay, what do we have up front? And then how are we going to build that roster moving forward? But the biggest challenge is knowing what we have and then how we are going to fix it and get better.”

Luke went on to say that recruiting out of the portal is hard because he wants to build a relationship with a player, and sometimes that isn’t possible when a player has just a few weeks to make a decision.

“It's difficult because recruiting, coaching, everything is about relationships. When I've been a good recruiter, it's because you spent three years building a relationship with somebody,” he said. “Now, there may be a kid in the portal that maybe I recruited and had already developed that relationship with, but it's very, very tough because, to me, it's all about relationships. You have to build those if you want to be a successful recruiter. Coming in, and you don't know anything or everything about a kid. It adds a level of difficulty for sure.”