Top Georgia lineman 'a good fit' for Clemson

Jameson Riggs was on campus for Clemson's Elite Retreat in January and visited in the fall as well.

by Ariana Pensy - Correspondent - Wed Feb 15 12:30:19 GMT-04:00 2023

Clemson football is targeting 2024 Hiram, Georgia offensive lineman Jameson Riggs and the 4-star prospect brings a lot to the table.

“As an athlete and as a leader, he’s outstanding. He sets the tone for us as a team,” Hiram head coach Pete Fominaya told TigerNet. “He does a really good job of being a leader for his teammates and being an example. He’s a great worker and he’s relentless in the weight room.”

Riggs is a highly-recruited athlete with a total of 30 reported offers from colleges across the country, from East Carolina and Florida State to Michigan and Ohio State to Colorado. In addition, he’s made six unofficial visits to college, including coming to Clemson back in November of last year; it was the fifth unofficial visit he made. Then, he attended Junior Day for Georgia Tech in mid-January before attending Clemson’s at the end of January. He still has yet to make a decision on where he will play, but the Tigers are definitely a top choice for him.

“Clemson is one of his top schools,” Fominaya said. “We’ve had a hundred schools come through here to see Jameson and Coach (Thomas) Austin has done one of the best jobs in the country in recruiting him. For a young man that has 40 plus offers, Clemson has been diligent with him and they’ve done a really good job establishing a relationship with him and Coach Austin and him have a good relationship. So, I think it’d be a good fit for the two of them.”

Besides being a talented football player, Riggs is also an intelligent person. His coach said that he has a 4.0 GPA and has taken a number of Honors and Advanced Placement (AP) classes. His smarts shows in his methodological approach to narrowing down his list of colleges.

“His plan is to go visit spring football and then take his official visits in June and then hopefully make a decision in July,” Fominaya said. “But, this is so fluid nowadays with everything being so accelerated so that timeline could get moved up quickly. But, I know that he really enjoys his time with Coach Austin and the time he’s gotten to spend with Coach Swinney and I know they’ve made a really positive impression on him.”

The atmosphere in Clemson and the culture that Dabo Swinney has established is something that is drawing the attention of a lot of elite athletes, including Riggs. That is why players who come to Clemson not only show academic prowess and exceptional football skills, but they are also good human beings.

“Coach Swinney is really big on recruiting exceptional human beings, and I think that’s what (Riggs) is. He’s gonna be a really good teammate,” Fominaya said. “He’s going to be a guy that has a blue-collar mentality, going to come (to) work really hard … I think he’ll be a kid that can work himself into a starter, hopefully, in his first couple of years.”

Always enjoy being at Clemson! Thank you to Coach Austin and everyone else for the great time! #Allin @Clements_TJC @CoachGRiley @BTHOM63_100 @ClemsonFB @SorrellsJordan pic.twitter.com/dQq90a4LMl
— Jameson Riggs (@RiggsJameson) January 29, 2023