Nick Eason Has Clemson Recruitment Roaring
The Clemson Tigers finished the 2021 College Football season as the 14th ranked team in the College Football AP Poll with a 10-3 record (6-2 record in ACC conference play).
Following their 2021 season, Clemson lost multiple key members of their coaching staff. Defensive coordinator, Brent Venables, was the first domino to fall – Venables left Clemson to return to his alma mater, the University of Oklahoma, to become their new head coach on December 5th of last year. Five days later, offensive coordinator Tony Elliott would get hired by the University of Virginia to become the new head coach. Many wondered if this was the beginning of the end of Clemson’s championship aspirations, along with their success in recruiting.
After losing key members of their coaching staff, the Tigers hired Auburn defensive line coach and former defensive tackle at Clemson, Nick Eason, to be the new defensive tackles coach and run-game coordinator, replacing then defensive tackles coach Todd Bates.
Although he was hired at the beginning of the year for a specific position, Eason has been heavily involved with Clemson’s recruiting.
Before Eason’s arrival, Clemson finished in the top 10 for 2022’s recruiting rankings, which is still impressive. However, when recruiting season in 2023 kicked off, Clemson had a slow start as they would only land three recruits. Although Clemson was able to land high-end 5-star Quarterback Christopher Vizzina as their first committee of the class, they were still behind in recruiting, which led to many people questioning Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney’s ability to pull in more talent to his program. However, despite the slow start, Clemson was able to land more recruits and move up the rankings.
Even though the 2023 recruiting process is still taking place, Eason started to work his magic in June as Clemson was able to land 12 recruits in the same month, with eight recruits on the defensive side of the ball, including multiple four star talents such as defensive linemen Vic Burley, linebacker Jamal Anderson, defensive lineman Stephiylan Green, cornerback Avieon Terrell, defensive lineman AJ Hoffler, linebacker Dee Crayton and safety Kylen Webb.
As uncertainty was slowly starting to build at Death Valley, Clemson’s newly promoted Defensive Coordinator Wes Goodwin and Eason were able to work together and land quality talent on the defense. This led to Clemson’s rise in the rankings as they are now in the top five in the new college football recruiting rankings.
Despite the doubt creeping up on one of the best football programs in the country, the Tigers have roared back and have silenced all the critics who were starting to doubt Swinney and his Tigers curtesy of Eason’s recruiting magic. What makes this even crazier is that the Tigers aren’t done yet, so you can expect more High School football players from around the country to commit to Clemson.