Clemson Football: Culture has nothing to do with the decommitments

The 2021 Clemson football recruiting cycle has been a roller coaster

The Clemson football program has suffered more decommitments in this current 2021 recruiting cycle than it did in the previous six combined.

There has been a growing understanding among Clemson football fans that once a prospect commits to the Tigers, that means their recruiting is closed. Dabo Swinney and his staff don’t take a commitment unless the prospect chooses to be ‘All-In,’ and that means not taking any more official visits.

Over the past couple of months, the Clemson football program has suffered two decommitments: One from 5-star DE Korey Foreman and one from 4-star CB Jordan Hancock.

While the Foreman decommitment didn’t come as a complete surprise and didn’t hurt all that much simply because he expressed the desire to continue his recruitment, the Hancock decommitment caught many off-guard.

Hancock had been open publicly that he was still in contact with Ohio State staff members and commits in the 2021 recruiting class and there have been plenty of factors as to why he ultimately is going to choose to the Buckeyes, including OSU’s rapport of putting cornerbacks in the NFL, family reasons and the fact that he grew up rooting for Ohio State.

Of course, though, everyone wants to put to the culture at Clemson football

Yes, teams and fans are going to negatively recruit Dabo Swinney and it certainly doesn’t help that the Tigers aren’t able to get recruits on campus to show them what’s so special about Clemson to begin with.

That being said, it’s not a culture problem.

While some recruits may believe what opposing coaches say about Swinney on the recruiting trail, the truth of the matter is that Clemson is still is a prestigious offer. The Tigers are still one of the top programs in the nation and basically every single player- both past and present- continue to come to Swinney’s side when talking about the culture of the program.

That’s going to speak for itself.

Yes, the Tigers may lose out on a recruit every now and then, but that’s not the case with what happened with Hancock or Foreman, at least in my opinion. As a matter of fact, Foreman has continued to place Clemson as one of his top schools moving forward.

Once the dead period ends and prospects can get back to taking visits, we’re going to see that ‘uniqueness’ of Clemson football shine through once again.