Athletic article about recruitment of C.J. Spiller to Clemson

Techsan81 · Jul 3, 2023

Good article and got me to thinking about another situation with a 5 star player potentially going to a school nobody thinks could/should be able to land him...

It had been an emotional recruitment for Clifford Spiller Jr., a five-star prospect and arguably the nation’s best running back in the Class of 2006. As a boy, the Florida State fan — wearing jersey No. 28 in honor of running back Warrick Dunn — figured he’d one day play for the Seminoles. Once he was in high school, Urban Meyer and Florida, the hometown school just 40 minutes away, made a strong push. The Gators appeared to be the favorite as signing day neared.

“I just really thought,” Spiller’s mother, Patricia Watkins, says, “it was gonna be Florida.”

All the while, though, Spiller couldn’t get his connection with a young, eager wide receivers coach in upstate South Carolina out of his head.

Dabo Swinney had been told countless times he had no business recruiting a five-star prospect such as Spiller. Clemson didn’t land those types of recruits. But Swinney, then 36, was steadfast in his belief that Spiller’s recruitment could change that.

Seventeen years later, Spiller is a College Football Hall of Famer who is in his third season as the Tigers running backs coach. He is universally considered Clemson’s most significant recruit in program history, helping lay the foundation for an influx of talent that helped the Tigers to six College Football Playoff appearances and two national titles since 2015.

“When I came to Clemson I just felt like we just didn’t have this belief that we could recruit the best players, win at the highest level, and he was kind of the first one that really started to change that,” Swinney says.

“He was Superman.”

Swinney: I remember when we were first talking about Spiller, it was like, “Ah, OK, yeah, he’s a great one, he’s probably the best one out there, but hey — we’re not gonna get him. We better focus on these (other) guys.” And I’m just like, “Well why can’t we get him?” I was the new guy and it was like, “OK, well, hey — you go on, try hard. Good luck.”

Spiller: I treated him just like I treated all the rest of the recruiters. I took their information, took their cards and did my own research. But every time we talked, there was just something different. … It wasn’t always about X’s and O’s, it was a ton about to do with family, because at the time when I was coming out, my daughter was getting ready to be born, so it was a lot of conversations … that I really didn’t have with anybody else.

'He ain’t coming': The stunning announcement that changed a college football program's trajectory

How an eager, young wide receivers coach lured five-star prospect C.J. Spiller away from Florida and Florida State

theathletic.com

J T Chance · Jul 3, 2023