As schools buy QBs and pancake houses buy OL, can Clemson compete?

Dabo Swinney and the Tigers are having to navigate a new world of college athletics.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Thu Apr 21 08:00:06 GMT-04:00 2022

CLEMSON – Name/Image/Likeness (NIL) endorsements have drastically changed the landscape of college football, and many might say it’s not for the better as college programs scramble to provide top dollars for current players and incoming recruits. Some have the resources to make a splash, and some don’t. Can “Little Old Clemson” compete with the big boys? Tigers athletic director Graham Neff thinks so.

In the last few weeks, it’s been rumored that the University of Tennessee lured 5-star quarterback Nico Iamaleava out of the state of California and into the Smokies for an NIL deal upwards of $8 million. You can look at it a lot of different ways, but it comes down to the fact that the Volunteers basically bought their next quarterback, per that rumor.

Down in the Lone Star State, Texas A&M’s 2022 recruiting class is set to cost the school’s boosters upwards of $30 million in deals for NIL when the prospects officially enroll. The Aggies wound up with the nation’s best recruiting class – and one of the best ever – on the heels of a spending spree.

The University of Texas reportedly weaponized NIL to land No. 1 overall quarterback recruit Quinn Ewers. Texas boosters are also paying every offensive lineman on scholarship $50,000 through NIL— a well-known fact that could entice offensive line recruits to commit to the Longhorns. SMU boosters and notable alumni also announced a huge amount of money for NIL.

Some of those schools have huge – and wealthy – alumni bases. Clemson has neither, with a small base of living alumni, something that Neff understands.

“We've talked about it with some of our coaches. Our student body right now is 27,000 (students), and it hasn't always been that way,” Neff told TigerNet. “When you were in school, it probably was four digits, not five, maybe. And therefore, that shows itself into living alums and living alumni days. We don't have the girth, so to speak, of maybe some of those that we compete with.”

However, Clemson does have something going for it.

“But I would tell you what we do have - and I would argue as much or more than anybody in the country, in the state of Texas or otherwise - is the passion and the investment from our people,” Neff said. “And so, where we maybe don't have the barons of Texas and that type of really high level of investment or just focus, but I'll put IPTAY up and the numbers will show it, next to any fundraising organization and athletic support organization in the country. And the numbers show it. I mean, we're going to do $40 million with our annual fund this year. There's not a whole lot of schools in the country that do that level of annual fund support, and that's from an alumni base that is not as big as a lot of these others. And so that passion, that athletic passion, and with that institutional pride and passion and support, I put Clemson with anybody in the country.”

Can Clemson compete with the “barons?” Neff said he doesn’t think Clemson has to.

“Can we compete with the top, top end with some of the, you can call them barons? It's easy to point to Texas and Texas A&M. I don't know, but I don't know that we have to,” he said. “But a lot of the other schools that we do compete against in our conference and within the SEC, I'll put our people and our passion and our financial support up with any of them. And they're having the same type of concerns from their coaching staffs and whatever sports and their administrations in Athens and in Tuscaloosa and in Gainesville, they just are. I'll tell you, and everyone's pointing to Texas, and that's easy. And again, Texas has done a lot of things. The state of Texas has done a lot of things. And so they maybe operate a little differently. But for us, for a lot of our region and radius that we compete against, we absolutely can compete and we can keep up, but it comes down to people and decision making and strategy and being assertive in that regard."

Just last week, Clemson received a commitment from one of the top quarterbacks in the country in Christopher Vizzina. No NIL dollars, no mention of seven-figure endorsements, just a family atmosphere and the promise of a better life away from football. Can the Tigers keep winning that way?

“And I think that's how Clemson has built success in a lot of our sports. And sure, football certainly with Coach Swinney," Neff said. "And I think that, yeah, now it's new and different, but those same ways we operate and the values and support we have will keep us consistently connected.”