Upcoming Season Could Heavily Impact Future OL Recruiting

Due in part to Clemson struggling to land most of its top offensive line targets in the 2024 recruiting cycle, Dabo Swinney decided to make a change, replacing assistant Thomas Austin with veteran Matt Luke.

Going into the big official visit weekend last June, the Tigers had yet to secure a commitment from an offensive linemen. Six were on hand for the event, with Clemson landing just one verbal pledge, which came from 4-star Ronan O’ Connell in early July.

This summer the coaching staff once again hosted six offensive linemen on officials that first weekend in June. Five of those recruits have already announced commitments, with just one, 4-star Rowan Byrne, jumping on board with the Tigers. 5-star David Sanders is still undecided, but the chances of him landing with Clemson appear to reside somewhere between slim and none.

On the surface, those optics are without question pretty bad. Although, this year is a little different. Clemson already had 4-stars Easton Ware and Brayden Jacobs committed as we headed into the summer months, two more than they had one year ago. After Byrne announced coming out of the official visit weekend, that made three. Three more than they had when June ended last year, and three pretty good ones at that. So on that front, the Tigers are in much better shape that they were a year ago. They have until December to add one more to the group, if they choose to go that route and assuming they miss on Sanders.

On the other hand, all the misses this summer prove that Clemson’s struggles recruiting offensive linemen ran deeper than who was coaching them. While Luke has a very good track record when it comes to developing offensive linemen and putting them into the NFL, as a program, the Tigers do not. Couple that with the issues up front during the four-loss season in 2023, and there are still some hurdles to overcome. And that’s not even getting into NIL and Swinney’s reluctance to get into bidding wars for high school prospects.

That makes the upcoming season that much more important. The Tigers need to show a marked improvement along the offensive line. While it won’t help with the guys that are already off the board in this recruiting class, it could have a profound effect on some of the bigger targets that Luke is targeting in 2026.

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