Swinney explains why Clemson's recruiting policy not only works, but thrives

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney sees a recruiting strategy that's working.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Fri Apr 05 07:00:02 GMT-04:00 2024

CLEMSON – Dabo Swinney’s recruiting strategy is still working, and as NIL and the transfer portal reach a fever pitch, other coaches are following the Swinney model.

Swinney’s program doesn’t hand out offers like other schools – the Tigers have handed out just 61 for the 2025 recruiting cycle. Rival Florida State has handed out a whopping 266, while South Carolina has handed out 213. The Tigers sit fourth nationally in the recruiting rankings, however, and Swinney knows why.

“I just think we know what we're looking for. We're not all things to all people. I think we've offered 55 or 56 kids so far in this class of ‘25. Our hit rate's really high,” Swinney said. “If we offer a kid, there's a good chance we might get 'em. And I don't know, I've just always wanted our offer to mean something. I've never really wanted to water our brand down and offer kids that they're not even interested. And that's part of it. But I just think evaluation is key. Retention is key, development is key, and you win with people.

“And that's how we've won here. We've won with consistency and we've won with those areas, evaluation, retention, development. And so, we usually are usually done by August every year. Maybe there’s a random spot here or there, or somebody leaves that we didn't anticipate or know about yet, or a junior going pro or whatever. And you kind of address that. But it's just as we've had success and as our brand has grown and we've got kids that are interested from all kinds of different places all over, I want our offer to mean something.”

Clemson also refuses to offer until a prospect has completed their sophomore year of high school.

“And that's why we don't offer freshmen and sophomores. It is a developmental game. There's a lot of great players that have been here at Clemson that would've never gotten an offer as a 10th grader because they weren't good enough and wouldn't have got many offers from many places,” Swinney said. “But especially kids that are 14 to 18 and the transformation and the development happens there. So we just always wanted to be slow and right rather than fast and wrong. And we've made some mistakes in the past. Anybody, you're never going to bat a thousand. But we just think the biggest thing is we know the fit here and we know what we think is the standard at each position and what we're looking for criteria. And again, our hit rate is pretty good.”

Swinney wants more than just football players.

“And I know that's something that other people to each his own, I just feel like when a kid comes here, it's our responsibility to graduate him and he's going to have that opportunity to do that,” Swinney said. “I'm not going to fix mistakes as long as the kid goes to class, he gives great effort, he tries. And it's just the way it is. So that's another reason why there's not many offers because coaches know they're going to be held accountable. And again, it's a two-way street. That's one of the reasons why you don't see a lot of kids leave here without having degrees.”

The Tigers are in the NIL world, but Clemson doesn’t get involved in bidding wars for recruits or players in the portal.

“Everybody deals with that. Honestly, it's made my life easier. It's made it a simpler process for us, and we don't waste any time on recruiting (kids who want money). It's pretty clear cut and upfront who really aligns with who we are and who's looking for something different,” Swinney said. “And so the good news is there's a lot of great players out there and it's not that they don't want to do NIL absolutely, but our NIL is for retention, not recruiting. That's how we've used it. And that's been our approach. And so, there's some kids that are just making a decision just on that and that is fine. It's not to judge people for what they think they want to do, but then there's kids over here that that's important, but that’s not what they're really making their decision on. And that's the kids that come to Clemson.”