Clemson football takes step back in 247Sports 'Development Rating'

The Tigers should see that ranking only go up after recent classes (ACC photo).

by TigerNet Staff - Mon Jun 07 11:57:25 GMT-04:00 2021

Clemson slipped eight spots in the 247Sports "Development Rating" released on Monday.

The metric takes a 5-year snapshot at players going to the NFL and assigns points to an eligible group for different round selections, taking players out of the grading who did not finish their time at the school in certain situations or transferred after two or fewer seasons. Clemson fell from a third-place ranking in 2020 to 11th after the most recent draft, which was explained by the site.

"Clemson ranked No. 3 in development rating a year ago," 247Sports' Chris Hummer said. "The reason it dropped is simple: The Tigers had seven of their 11 qualifying players from the 2016 class not get drafted. At the same time, a 2011 class with two first-round picks in five qualifying prospects was no longer eligible to be counted.

"The Tigers are going to be an interesting case for Development Rating moving forward. Clemson signed its first top 10 class under Dabo Swinney in 2015. So, Clemson’s number of Top247 players in this study will only increase. It’ll be interesting if the draft production keeps up. Unlike a lot of other programs that cycle out players quickly – the bottom half of Alabama’s roster tends to turn over each cycle so the Tide can keep signing monster high school classes – Clemson’s roster tends to be more static with fewer players opting to leave no matter their place on the depth chart."

Out of the 2016 class mentioned, John Simpson, Cornell Powell, Trayvon Mullen and Dexter Lawrence were the highest-rated signees to move on to the pros. Other prominent signees included Tavien Feaster, Tre Lamar, Shaq Smith and Xavier Kelly, while under-the-radar standouts to earn pro spots included Isaiah Simmons, Tremayne Anchrum and K'Von Wallace. The book hasn't closed yet on Nolan Turner, Nyles Pinckney and James Skalski.

Overall, Alabama led the way with 65.6 percent of its eligible players drafted over the five-class range, with Florida next (69%), then Washington (58.3%), Ohio State (60.8) and LSU (52.4%), with Miami pacing the ACC (65.2%). Clemson (46.7%; 0.83 rating) edged schools like Florida State (50%; 0.82), Notre Dame (47%; 0.81), Auburn (51.%; 0.80) and Michigan (42.3%; 0.76).