Being part of Clemson football isn’t for everyone

Clemson football loses another highly ranked player to the transfer portal.

Any Clemson football fan that is mad at freshman Demarkcus Bowman for entering the transfer portal needs to check themselves. Like everyone else in life, he is doing what is best for himself and there is nothing wrong with that.

Not everything works out the way that we envision they will, as adults we understand this. Matter of fact, the older we get the more we truly understand the phrase ‘hope for the best but prepare for the worst’.

Bowman isn’t the first high ranking player Clemson football has lost recently and he surely will not be the last. We have seen it with Josh Belk and Kyler McMichael in recent years and there are probably one or two more young guys on this roster that will do the same before next football season.

Clemson football is not meant for everyone.

Being a Clemson football player isn’t easy and it is not meant for everyone. Not to say that guys that leave are unable to hack it at Clemson, rather, there is just a lot to take into account especially when you are not playing early.

At some point during his recruiting process, Bowman was guaranteed playing time by coaches around the country, it happens all the time. We know Clemson doesn’t operate that way, however, what Bowman didn’t think about was Travis Etienne coming back and at that point, everyone was fighting for second place.

What he also assuredly did not take into account was the demands that running back coach Tony Elliott places on his running backs before he will put them on the field. While we know that Tony communicates that upfront, most high school players have no idea what that means and believe that their athleticism will be able to account for what they don’t know.

As my colleague pointed out earlier, Bowman was sixth on the depth chart. That is hard for a player to deal with when you were the top recruit at your position coming into college and have always been better than everyone else.

Most college athletes go through that difficult transition period where they come to terms with the reality that every teammate of theirs was “the man” in high school and now are fighting just to be recognized in college. Some are able to get through that period and flourish while others take a couple of years and may never actually get there.

We saw the last scenario play out with former running backs Tavien Feaster. Sure, he also had to fight Travis Etienne for playing time but remember his tweet just before announcing he was leaving and he said that no matter how good you are, some still won’t give you a chance.

It is hard to play for Clemson football and when a kid realizes that grind is not for them, we should wish them nothing but the best and hope that they are able to find a place they can flourish at.