The NIL era of college football has been somewhat of a nightmare for head coaches. Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney has found himself working twice as hard just to keep his roster intact, and he's one of the best in the sport at avoiding major roster turnover.
Swinney has been heavily criticized for not utilizing the transfer portal but he finally dabbled this offseason, landing three guys who could have immediate impacts.
And while Swinney has been forced to recruit his own players to make sure they don't leave via the portal due to better NIL deals elsewhere, he's still working on keeping that 2026 recruiting class intact. He's done a solid job so far, leading to three players announcing that they're shutting their recruitment down and they're 100 percent committed to the Tigers.
This wasn't news in the past, but in this era, it is.
The third Tiger commit to announce he was shutting his recruitment down was four-star defensive back Kentavion Anderson. He announced the news on Wednesday evening.
I’m ALL IN🐅‼️Locked in with Clemson University 1000%.Big thanks to every coach who rocked with me, but it’s up now. Let’s work. Let’s eat. Let’s make history.#ALLIN #Recuitmentshutdown #ClemsonFootball @CoachConn @coachmorrisDHS @Coach_Boyd77 @TheJoeyHawkins @ChadSimmons_ pic.twitter.com/625z9n3s7e
— Kentavion ‘’polo’’ Anderson ❹ˢᵗᵃʳ 𝘋𝘉 ✞ (@Kentavion_a) July 30, 2025
Anderson is a top-100 safety from Roebuck, S.C., and he's one of the highest-rated commits in Clemson's 2026 class. He would undoubtedly have teams making a run at him late in the process, hoping for a flip, but he made it clear that he's not going anywhere.
This fantastic news comes just one day after four-star wideout Naeem Burroughs shut his recruitment down and said he was "all in" with Clemson as well.
In an era in which keeping recruits committed is its own sport, Dabo and Co. are dominating -- at least in this cycle. Avoiding a slew of flips is only going to conjure up more momentum for the program.