Boulware commits

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Wed Mar 28 22:09:29 GMT-04:00 2012

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney Dabo Swinney
Head Coach
View Full Profile picked up an old school football player for his 2013 recruiting class Wednesday night.

T.L. Hanna linebacker Ben Boulware Ben Boulware
Outside Linebacker
6-1, 230
Anderson, SC
View Full Profile , a three-star prospect who had recently narrowed his choices down to Clemson and Georgia, became the fifth commitment for the 2013 class when he gave Swinney his verbal Wednesday night.

Boulware, who had 178 tackles and four sacks his junior season, described himself as a throwback player.

“I feel like I’m an old school football player,” Boulware told TigerNet shortly after the commitment. “You can’t really measure someone’s love and desire of football and wanting to play the game. I’m just an old school guy that just likes hurting people. I’m an old school linebacker.”

Boulware had offers from Georgia, Connecticut, Georgia Tech, Duke, Louisville, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, South Florida, Tennessee, Stanford, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, and Wake Forest.

The Tigers were a little late in bringing an offer to the table, but a change in coordinators helped make Boulware a Tiger.

“I guess it was with the change from Coach [Kevin] Steele to Coach [Brent] Venables,” he said. “I don’t guess I fit Coach Steele’s whole defensive situation. I guess he didn’t like me, I don’t know. The first week Venables was there, he was wondering the same thing- why they hadn’t offered me. I guess it was just all Steele really. I wasn’t the type of linebacker he likes.”

In a funny twist, Boulware almost couldn’t find a Clemson coach to commit to.

“I actually tried to call Coach Venables three or four times and he didn’t answer,” he said. “I guess he was spending time with his family. Then, I called Coach [Chad] Morris and he told me that I had to call Dabo and commit to him first. He gave me Dabo’s number and he didn’t answer at first and then I had to call Coach Morris back and he said, ‘okay now you can call him.’ So I called him back, and he finally answered and I told him and he screamed. It was kind of funny.”

Boulware’s brother Garrett is a freshman on Clemson’s baseball team, and Ben said Clemson just felt like family.

“Clemson just felt like home. It is a family atmosphere,” he said. “Clemson is in my blood because all of my family graduated from there and my brother is there now. It just felt right.”