Matt Luke will need to build the Clemson Football offensive line the old fashioned way

Matt Luke was brought into Clemson Football to change the fortunes of the Tigers’ offensive line.

While Clemson has placed multiple linemen in the NFL, the highest draft pick during the past decade has been a second-rounder (Jackson Carman to the Bengals in 2021 with the 46th overall pick).

While Clemson’s offensive line wasn’t considered a liability of the championship teams in 2016 and 2018, they also weren’t viewed as strengths either.

There were two avenues that Luke might take to achieve the goal of turning the O-Line into an asset: turn the current players into NFL prospects or evaluate the high school ranks and bring them to Clemson. In an ideal world, he would do both.

Luke has put considerable effort into recruiting in his first offseason with the Tigers. He inherited one 2025 commit in Easton Ware from Liberty Prep, a teammate of Gideon Davidson.

He earned the commitment of Brayden Jacobs, the son of NFL running back Brandon Jacobs. He also received a commitment from tackle prospect Rowan Byrne, who was at Clemson’s official visit weekend.

Byrne was one of six line prospects in attendance. David Sanders from Charlotte, North Carolina has the highest profile and has yet to announce his destination. A Clemson commmitment from Sanders would certainly be a gamechanger, but that isn't something anyone should presume. Sanders has plenty of suitors who will likely check more boxes than the Tigers.

The other four – Max Buchanon, Mario Nash, Mal Waldrep, and Hardy Watts – have all announced they will be going someplace other than Clemson.

It is difficult to know the exact reasons why those four went elsewhere. Every recruitment is different. Proximity, NIL, and postseason potential can all influence a recruitment.

It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that Luke’s track record of developing talent into NFL draft picks alone isn’t going to boost Clemson’s recruiting up to the level it would need to be to achieve his ultimate goal.

This means Luke is going to need to prove he can do what he did in the past at Georgia, Ole Miss, and Tennessee at Clemson with the clay already in his hands. That isn’t an impossible task.

His first group at Clemson includes two guards with three seasons of starting experience with Walker Parks and Marcus Tate. He has a two-year starter at right tackle in Blake Miller who was 3rd team All-ACC last season and could be in store for a big year. He also has two highly-rated players with Tristan Leigh and Ryan Linthicum who haven’t blossomed into the players we hoped they would be but could flourish under Luke’s tutelage.

As I said, not an impossible task, but not a slam dunk either. Similar to quarterback development in 2024, we will need to see how this offensive line evolves over the course of a full season.

If Luke can make notable progress with the linemen he has inherited, it should go a long way toward changing the perceptions of Clemson’s capabilities to develop offensive linemen.