Clemson Football: Tigers became relevant at the perfect time

The Clemson football program is sitting on the throne of College Football and, honestly, it couldn’t have happened at a more perfect time.

The Clemson football program has seen unprecedented success during the past half-decade under Dabo Swinney.

The Tigers have made five-straight CFB Playoff appearances, four National Title appearances and have won two National Championships in the past four seasons. Clemson has also won five-straight ACC Championships.

With the amount of success we’ve seen the Tigers achieve, this period of time under Dabo Swinney has become known as the ‘Golden Era of Clemson Football.’

Honestly, it couldn’t have happened at a more perfect time.

Do you remember just a little more than 10 years ago during the Tommy Bowden era when Clemson was basically irrelevant in the College Football national picture? The Tigers were struggling to compete in the ACC consistently and hadn’t won a conference title in two decades.

With the new rules rolling in from the NCAA pertaining to paying players for their likeness, one thing is for sure when it comes to the landscape of College Football: The rich will get richer.

Players aren’t going to get paid for trademarks of their school, so many people think that this won’t change much, but the truth is that recruits are going to want to be relevant. They’re going to want to go to programs that allow them to become nationally-known names.

What does that mean?

Well, it means we’re going to see the power programs of today continue to get better and better. Prospects are going to want to go to big-names like Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, Oklahoma, Georgia, LSU and others along that same line.

Will it allow a few other rich programs- like Texas, USC and Notre Dame- to return to prominence? Probably so.

But it’s going to be a ‘big dog world’ moving forward. We’re going to see players choose schools that put them in the best position to be successful for the NFL and for their name to get out there as fast as possible. That means they want to compete for National Championships and win individual accolades.

Clemson’s rise to power in College Football came at the perfect time. The Tigers are considered one of the ‘bluebloods’ in the here & now and that’s all that matters as we move forward.

Elite prospects are going to continue considering Clemson, but can you imagine just how difficult it would be for the Tiger program to be built from scratch now in the changing landscape of College Football?