Clemson football: Breaking down RB position by star-ratings

Breaking down the Clemson football RB position by star-ratings

The Clemson football program has done as good of job as any in identifying talent and hitting on its recruits over the past few years.

The Tigers have won six-straight ACC Championships, made six-straight CFB Playoff appearances and won two National Titles in the last five years under the leadership of Dabo Swinney.

As we continue to look forward to another successful offseason, Rubbing the Rock will be giving you a series breaking down each position by the star-ratings.

Sometimes it’s fascinating to look at how a player was evaluated coming out of high school and what they have accomplished on the field, as well as their potential to make an impact in the upcoming season. That’s exactly what we’ll be doing with this series.

To kick things off, let’s look at the running back position. For the ratings, we’ll be using the 247 Sports’ Composite Player Rankings.

Here’s a look at the scholarship running backs on the roster and their star-ratings:

• Lyn-J Dixon (4-star, No. 7 APB in Class of 2018)
• Darien Rencher (Not rated)
• Chez Mellusi (4-star, No. 14 RB in Class of 2019)
• Michel Dukes (3-star, No. 56 RB in Class of 2019)
• Kobe Pace (3-star, No. 32 RB in Class of 2020)
• Will Shipley (5-star, No. 1 APB in Class of 2021)*
• Phil Mafah (4-star, No. 8 RB in Class of 2021)*

*Indicates true freshman*

Clemson football running back group ‘on paper’ has the talent to be extremely dangerous

On this roster, you’ve got two 4-stars in Dixon and Mellusi, a 3-star in Dukes, a 3-star in Pace, an unrated walk-on who has proven to be a major leader in Rencher and two highly-touted freshmen.

The first thing we notice when looking at this rankings is just how high Shipley and Mafah are compared to where their soon-to-be teammates were ranking. Clemson hadn’t drawn a top-10 running back since Tavien Feaster, and the Tigers drew two in this past class.

With Dixon becoming the likely starter, it’s time that we see both him and Mellusi step up. The Tigers haven’t had much of a rushing attack outside of Travis Etienne over the past couple of years, but we’ve seen the explosiveness and athleticism in both of those guys (especially Dixon) to know that they are capable of making an impact. The only question is if they’ll take that next step this season.

It will be interesting to see how the two freshmen factor into the equation and what Mikey Dukes is able to do this spring as he works to not get passed on the depth chart and to factor into the three-deep.