Clemson football: Scholarship management has to improve if Tigers ever want to compete again

The 2021 Clemson football team has suffered injury after injury with nearly countless players going down over the course of the season.

The Tigers have already seen 11 scholarship players suffer season-ending injuries and there have been more than double that number who have missed at least some game time due to an injury.

Any year that you have a double-digit number of players go down with injuries, you’re going to have some depth issues but the problem facing Clemson right now is that the replacements on the team aren’t nearly on the same level– or even close– to the guys they are replacing.

Why? Because there are seven former walk-ons who are now on scholarship: Drew Swinney, Jack Maddox, Luke Price, Will Brown, Carson Donnelly and James & Jacob Edwards.

Injury problems show why Clemson football has to improve at scholarship management

This isn’t a knock on these players, but let’s be honest here: Drew Swinney can’t replace Beaux Collins. It’s simply not going to work.

While we’re on that topic, just real quick. I personally don’t understand why either of the Swinney brothers are on scholarship. Even if they were absolute studs who were going to the NFL, why wouldn’t Dabo Swinney (as their dad) just pay for their tuition, keep them as walk-ons and free-up a scholarship to use elsewhere?

Anyway, the idea that Clemson has been a development program is nice in theory. But the problem is that you’ve got the NCAA Transfer Portal where you literally lost three scholarship players during the season. When you add in the injuries, you can see where this becomes a problem.

It all starts with Clemson football doing two things:

1. The Tigers have to be willing to change and use the NCAA Transfer Portal
2. The Tigers have to be willing to ‘over-sign’ and bring in bigger recruiting classes

Look at the amount of players Alabama and Georgia are bringing in their recruiting classes every year and then look at Clemson. There’s simply no reason anymore in this day and age of College Football to have a class of only 16 commitments. That has to change.

You can’t lose 4-stars and replace them with walk-ons. It’s as simply as that.

Clemson has to be willing to bring in more talented players in recruitment at a higher volume and the Tigers have to be willing to look at the Transfer Portal to address needs each offseason. That’s how the winning programs are doing it and that’s how it’s going to have to be done if Clemson wants to stay at the top in years to come.

Intentionally handcuffing yourself and going into a fight with one hand tied behind your back isn’t going to work anymore. Not if you want to stay relevant nationally in College Football, anyway.