Clemson Football: Even in a ‘down year,’ the Tigers are near the top

It was a ‘down year’ in terms of draft class prospects for the Clemson football program. Still, the Tigers remained near the top.

There has been a consistent cycle for the Clemson football program during the last half-decade or so.

The Tigers have fallen short on the biggest stage of them all (2015), followed by winning a National Championship (2016), followed by a shortcoming (2017), followed by another National Championship (2018), followed by coming up short during this past season (2019).

In the years where we saw Clemson football win a National Championship, we saw lots of Tigers exit the program afterwards and be selected in the NFL Draft. In the years where the Tigers lost in the CFB Playoff, we saw a heavy influx of returning talent.

The same can be said about this 2019 season and what we are seeing heading into the 2020 Clemson football season.

Despite the fact that draft-eligible players like Travis Etienne chose to return to school and many other skilled prospects like Trevor Lawrence, Justyn Ross, Xavier Thomas, Jackson Carman and others aren’t eligible for the draft yet, Clemson stayed near the top in terms of draft picks.

In the end, only LSU (14), Michigan (10), Ohio State (10) and Alabama (9) had more draft selections than the Tigers had this season.

Interestingly enough, you can see just from these numbers how heavily-stacked those LSU and Ohio State teams were in terms of talent in their upper-classes.

Despite that fact, the Buckeyes weren’t able to beat a younger Clemson football team and LSU will now certainly be taking a step back after having potentially one of the greatest College Football teams in the history of the sport during the 2019 season.

When you think about the fact that Clemson will have players like Lawrence, Etienne, Carman, Thomas, Derion Kendrick, Braden Galloway and plenty of others taken in the 2021 NFL Draft, you can see just how good this program has become.

Even in a ‘down year’ in terms of the draft class, Clemson remains near the top. It looks like it will stay that way for many more drafts to come, as well.