Clemson Football: The Recruiting Radius
By Ben Greeson
There are many states represented on the Clemson football roster. Let’s take a look at the Tigers’ recruiting radius.
Fourteen different states are represented on this year’s Clemson football team. The numbers of each state, I’ll break down momentarily, really show that the Tigers don’t have to go very far from the comfy confines of Death Valley to find the talent they need to run an elite program.
If I recall correctly, former head coach Danny Ford would draw a circle, on a map, with a radius of 200 miles from Clemson.
That was the target area the coaching staff would focus on during recruiting. Many similarities are brought up during comparisons of Coach Swinney and Coach Ford. Targeted recruiting areas are one of those similarities.
Clemson has 29 players from the Palmetto state on its roster. The most of any state by a wide margin, and rightfully so. If you can’t get the best in your own state, you’re in trouble. Next in line behind South Carolina is our border sharing neighbors to the west.
Georgia has produced major talent over the years. Deshaun Watson is from Georgia. Tiger Running Back Wayne Gallman is from the Peach State as well. So is Mitch Hyatt, Austin Bryant,
Adam Choice and Tyshon Dye. All in all the great state of Georgia has given the Tigers 16 players on this years roster.
Georgia has been instrumental in the Tigers success for many years. Homer Jordan is a Georgia native and so was James Davis.
Nipping at Georgia’s heels is North Carolina. The Tar Heel state has been good to the Tigers as of late.
The Bowden era, either didn’t recruit North Carolina that heavily, or they just didn’t make much of an impact there. Coach Swinney and staff, again like Coach Ford’s staff, have had great
success getting some big time talent out of North Carolina. There are currently 15 players from North Carolina on the Tigers roster with names like Tyrone Crowder, Mark Fields, and Van Smith. New Orleans Saints linebacker, and former Tiger, Stephone Anthony hails from NC as well. Future Tiger stars Dexter Lawrence and Diondre Overton come to the Tigers this year from our northern border sharing friends. NC has been good to the Tigers.
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The Sunshine State, ahhh Florida. Your beautiful beaches, great weather, and Disney World. We can’t leave out Disney. All of these are reasons I love Florida. Another reason I love Florida is because this beautiful peninsula gave us CJ Spiller, Sammy Watkins and literally hundreds of other legendary Tigers.
There are 11 current Tigers that hail from the Sunshine State. Adrian Baker, Deon Cain, Jordan Leggett, and Artavis Scott played their high school ball in Florida. A hot bed of recruiting, the entire nation stockpiles their roster with Florida natives. With three major schools in Florida (FSU, UF and Miami) it’s hard to believe that there is enough talent to go around.
Florida, Texas and California produce more division one (FBS) players than all other states, combined. Hard to imagine. But, luckily Clemson has had a lot of success in the Sunshine State, and the Tiger coaching staff is more than happy to continue to dip a little further south to add elite talent to its roster.
Other states to make the list, but not as heavily represented on the roster is Maryland with 3, Virginia (3), Kansas (2), and Tennessee, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Texas, Colorado, and Alabama each have one player wearing Orange this season.
A hodgepodge of different personalities, different skill sets and hometowns, all coming together for one cause, one goal.
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You can expect to see many different states represented on the roster very soon. The Clemson brand is as national as any brand in college football now and there isn’t a legit high school player in the country that doesn’t know the PAW when they see it. I’m sure Coach Swinney and staff will welcome these players, from all across the nation with open arms.