National Signing Day Review: Gamecocks aren’t catching Clemson football anytime soon

Clemson football continues to dominate South Carolina on and off the field.

The Gamecocks were hoping that not suffering an embarrassing defeat to Clemson football on the field in 2020 would help them get closer to the Tigers off the field.

Instead, the exact opposite happens.

National Signing Day took place on Wednesday and to say South Carolina continues to be an embarrassment would be a severe understatement. After firing former head coach Will Muschamp and bringing “home” Shane Beamer, Gamecock fans across the state thought this was going to be a year of great change, however, it turned out to be an absolute nightmare.

How bad is the 2021 South Carolina football class? They ended up not ranked according to some sights and no higher than 78th according to sites like the 247Sports Composite. If you are keeping track at home, there are 65 Power 5 football programs plus Notre Dame.

The only Power 5 program to finish with a recruiting class worse than South Carolina – Oregon State.

That means 13 Group of Five schools that finished with better recruiting than the almighty South Carolina football program from the SEC – you know, that other Southern conference whose fans swear Clemson football couldn’t compete in week in and week out.

Recruiting classes aren’t created equally.

The Gamecocks 2021 recruiting class doesn’t include a single four or five-star recruit. Not one. Meanwhile, Clemson football finished with three 5-star recruits and 14 4-star recruits as well as an all-time program high 94.02 per player rating.

Gamecock fans everywhere have sworn for years that they are catching up to the Tigers. They are so hard up for wins that they continue to jump on the bandwagon of teams like Ohio State, Oklahoma, Alabama, LSU or anyone else they believe can beat Clemson on the field.

In 2021, Clemson football signed its best class ever for the fourth straight year, while South Carolina football signed its worse class ever.

Suffice to say, it isn’t getting any closer off the field between the two programs and it will be a decade or more before the two teams are even comparable on the field.