Clemson football essentially out of the running for 5-star QB

Any chance Clemson football seemingly had at landed 5-star QB Malachi Nelson has seemingly gone out of the window.

Nelson, who is rated as the No. 2 quarterback in the class of 2023, has been a heavy lean towards the Oklahoma Sooners for quite some time and that is the direction that most recruiting analysts believe he is headed as we approach his commitment date.

Nelson was at Steve Clarkson’s ‘The QB Retreat’ this past weekend and spoke with 247 Sports’ Greg Biggins. During the interview, he gave an update on his recruitment which included both Clemson and Oklahoma.

Nelson was originally scheduled to visit the Clemson football program on June 4-5 and he was going to throw for a session or two at Dabo Swinney’s Camp. He revealed in the interview that this will not be the case, after all.

He’ll still visit Oklahoma later this month and he is slated to make his decision on July 18th, the day of his parent’s anniversary.

Clemson football is essentially out of the running for the 5-star quarterback and the Tigers will turn their attention elsewhere

There was hope at one point that Nelson- who trained under the same leadership as D.J. Uiagalelei– might hold off on his commitment date and that would give the Tigers an opportunity to make a move. That’s simply not going to be the case.

Nelson talked about Clemson football being one of his top-two even when the Tigers never officially dished out a scholarship offer and something tells us behind-the-scenes that Clemson wasn’t quite recruiting him at the pace that he wanted. Oklahoma, on the other hand, has basically been ‘full steam ahead’ for months now.

The Tigers are being careful about the quarterback(s) they choose to target in this 2023 class and it’s clear they wanted to get Nelson on campus and connect with him in-person before advancing recruitment.

At this point, we would say the biggest QB target for Clemson football in the class of 2023 is 5-star Arch Manning, who is the No. 1 QB in the nation. Manning is set to take a visit to Clemson in just a matter of days and the Tigers will be his first visit of the summer.