Swinney says big recruiting rule change won't affect Clemson

Dabo Swinney doesn't seen the cap being taken off the number of official visits to schools affecting Clemson.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Thu Apr 20 07:00:27 GMT-04:00 2023

GREENWOOD – A recent major change to recruiting won’t affect how Clemson goes about its business, according to head coach Dabo Swinney.

The NCAA Division I Council approved that starting July 1 high school athletes will be able to take an unlimited number of official visits, though they will still be restricted to one official visit per school.

In the past, prospects would often use up their five official visits early and new schools moving in would often need to get those prospects in on their own dime late in the cycle. Now, recruits can take as many visits as they want.

Swinney doesn’t think the change affects the Tigers.

“It doesn’t really change anything on our end at all, honestly,” Swinney said at Tuesday night’s Prowl and Growl in Greenwood. “They only get one visit to Clemson, unless there’s a new head coach, then they can come back. But they only get one visit, so it doesn’t really change anything on our end.”

However, Swinney thinks the rule change is a positive move for the prospects.

“Honestly, I think it’s just better for the kids. Because the way recruiting is now, most these kids make decisions early,” he said. “The way they change the rules, there’s a lot of these guys taking official visits all of April, all of May, all of June. So then all of a sudden, that scholarship that they thought they had that they took all those visits for, come fall, it’s not there, and so now they’ve used all their visits. So I think it’s a good move for the player, honestly. I think it’s a common sense thing.”

From the program side, each school is still only allowed 56 visits in a year. From that side, those visits will become much more precious as the possibility of getting a big-name prospect in will be too valuable to give away on players schools aren’t all in on.

However, Swinney once again said that the rule doesn’t change anything for the Tigers.

“Typically, our classes are usually done by the time we get to the fall anyway outside of maybe a spot or two,” Swinney said. “That’s kind of historically the way it’s always been for us. I don’t really see that changing.”

The NCAA also moved up the contact date from September 1 of a prospect’s junior season to June 15 following their sophomore year. One under-the-radar aspect of the change was a reduction in allowable recruiting days during the spring eval period.

Previously schools were allotted 168 evaluation days for the entire staff throughout the spring but it was reduced to 140. Spring is one of the most important times in the process as in-person evaluations are now key to a prospect’s recruitment.