Coming off another National Championship victory, how did the Clemson Tigers fare in their 2019 recruiting efforts at National Signing Day?
The Clemson Tigers will open up the 2019 college football season both as defending National Champions and as the favorites to win the title again. Armed with true sophomore quarterback Trevor Lawrence, it’s clear that this Tigers team under Dabo Swinney has an eye for becoming the other dynasty in the world of college football.
Of course, to make that happen, the Tigers will need to keep recruiting star talent to come and don the orange under Swinney. Getting Lawrence as the top recruit in the 2018 class overall obviously proved beneficial, but they have plenty of talent leaving and that will be departing soon that they must replace if they want to stay atop the college football landscape.
The interesting thing for Clemson, however, is that they play the long game in recruiting these days. They addressed many weaknesses that will come up due to departures after the 2018 season with their recruiting classes last year. Subsequently, rather than starting freshman at places like the defensive line, they’ll have a little bit of run — at least in practice — under their belts.
Even so, the Tigers do add some intriguing pieces that will help them. For starters, their one 5-star of their 2019 recruiting class at National Signing Day is cornerback Andrew Booth. Joined by 4-star corner Sheridan Jones, they could contribute early on depending on how they show up in practice given the need there.
Meanwhile, the offense gets some more big (both standing 6-foot-3) weapons for Lawrence in wide receivers Frank Ladson and Joe Ngata, both 4-star players who could fill in as part of the rotation for the Clemson wide receiver corps.
With all that in mind, let’s take a look at the Tigers 2019 recruiting class, then hand out a grade for what they did this year on the recruiting trail.
At the end of the day, this Clemson team is in an interesting position that makes them an outlier in assessing their recruiting efforts.
While the Tigers don’t have as strong of a recruiting class overall as some of the other elite programs throughout the country, they also don’t totally need it. Between strong recruiting in recent years and having an exceptionally young and talented offense already, they’ll be just fine without a ton of 5-star prospects in this class.
Grade: B