Five ways the pandemic hurt Clemson football
Everyone is feeling the effects of the global pandemic and there’s certainly no exception for the Clemson football program.
While the 2020 Clemson football team continues to prepare for the upcoming season, there are still questions as to how, when and if College Football will be played this fall.
As we look back at the offseason so far, here are four ways the pandemic hurt the Clemson football program.
4. No All-In Cookout
The premiere recruiting event of the year for Clemson football typically takes place right around the end of summer before fall camp ramps up.
Over the course of the last decade, we’ve seen numerous high-profile recruits commit to the Tigers during the All-In Cookout event and many more who ended up committing later as a result of their visit during that cookout.
While it doesn’t seem so on the outside, there’s no doubt that having to cancel this even was a major loss for Clemson football and its recruiting efforts for the 2021 cycle.
3. Too many distractions
There were a lot of good things that happened this summer with the Clemson football program off-the-field. There were also some bad.
It seemed as if the Tigers went from being highlighted in one national news story to another, and not for the reasons they would’ve liked to. Of course, it should also be noted that the ‘negatives’ were covered much more in-depth than the positives.
All of that being said, we’re focusing more on the distraction the limelight creates.
Unfortunately, this program faced many distractions during this offseason and that certainly didn’t help. As we move forward, it will be interesting to see how the Tigers respond as some of these distractions may likely follow them around even when we begin playing football.
2. Shortened Spring
A lot of Clemson football fans have long since forgotten about the spring, but the fact that spring sessions were shortened certainly didn’t help the program, especially in some key areas.
The Tigers were looking to build depth and chemistry on the offensive line, but only had nine sessions to do so.
Justyn Ross went out with an injury and that didn’t give the Tigers much time to work on their rotation for the wide receiver core without Ross at the head.
Even areas like safety, where Clemson is replacing two starters, weren’t helped by the shortened spring.
1. No on-campus recruiting visits
Getting back to the All-In Cookout, the fact that no on-campus visits have been allowed for quite some time doesn’t help the Tigers.
We went through the full spring without having recruiting visitors on campus and that may be a bigger blow to this program than many understand.
While I don’t believe that any of these issues have permanently damaged the program, it should be noted that Clemson has been built on the simple fact that the atmosphere, the culture, the location, they’re all just different.
It can’t be explained, but there’s simply “something in these hills.”
Not being able to take prospects on tours and show them the family culture and atmosphere, especially this offseason, has certainly not helped Clemson football as we’ve progressed through the spring and summer.