A recent National Signing Day wrap from CBS Sports/247Sports analyst Josh Pate broke down “concerns” for the Clemson football program after a third consecutive ranking outside of the Composite Top 25 team recruiting rankings — and a worst in quite a while, at No. 26 overall
He received a few comments from the Tiger faithful on those words.
At the time, Pate said:
“I will say, none of this is definitive. I don’t know where Clemson’s headed. I’ve got concerns about where Clemson’s headed. They just finished with the 26th-ranked class in the country. That’s the lowest there since 2010…They’re not close. Let me put it plainly: Clemson’s football players that they are accumulating are not going to be good enough to meet the standard they’ve set there. Unless something drastic changes or unless their development laps the rest of the sport or the recruiting rankings were just totally flawed. Unless something like that is amiss, they’re not going to be able to keep up. This year’s team will actually be their best shot over the next several years. That’s the way it looks to me right now. I would be happy to be sold on the alternative.”
After receiving some feedback, Pate clarified his comments some but also reiterated his point.
“I did not think much of that segment when we did it to be honest with you. But apparently a lot of our Clemson fans did. That’s great,” Pate said. “Clemson is like our No. 6 biggest fanbase that views the show, so I promise you I’m listening. I promise you despite the comments I’m looking at on this piece of paper — I don’t hate Clemson. Quite the opposite. Quite the opposite. I don’t have a girlfriend that must’ve gone to South Carolina…I made special mention of the fact I think this year is the last year they have to kind of perform at a level that would roughly meet the Clemson standard. After that, after 2025, I said, I’m worried that they’re going to struggle to do that. There was a lot of rebuttal that I thought was logical — dozens and dozens of you came at me and said the same thing and you alleged that I was misunderstanding what they had just done there.”
Pate said short of some recruiting site rankings miscalculations or a further Clemson dive into the transfer portal planned, that he’s right.
“Yeah, they had just signed the No. 26 class but there was only 15 kids in it. It was a very small class. Guys, I knew that. I probably should have specified…What I was looking at and my take on it was baked in — I don’t really look at it as the 26th-ranked class,” Pate said. “I could have done a lot of favors by just going by average player ranking…In terms of average player grade, they finished 16th. Ok, so that’s 10 spots better. Having said that, the class is just not good enough…I’m looking at the caliber of roster that they have — it doesn’t look like Clemson over the past several years. The mid-20-teens, the late 20-teens Clemsons, which were super teams. It doesn’t look anywhere close to that. I don’t mean they’re comparable. I don’t mean we’re splitting hairs. I mean to me it’s not close. And so my concern, and I stated it in the video is not they’re going to fall off the face of the earth…What I said is that I’m concerned is that after 2025 the caliber of team they’re going to have there is such that they won’t be able to meet their standard.
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