NCAA Football

Just In Case You Thought The Orange Bowl Couldn’t Get Any Worse For Clemson

In college football, there’s almost always one eye on the future. Sure, sometimes you can say the same of the NFL thanks to the draft, but the draft is just that – a draft. If you’re taken by a team, you’re going to that team, unless, in rare cases, you have enough leverage to force a trade. In recruiting, though, schools are competing against one another for players, and the ultimate decision rests with the player himself (and alas, at times, the people around the players as well). Plus, it’s an ongoing process. So is draft prep, but that’s not public in the way verbal commitments are year-round. Following a program’s future is practically as big as following its present.

And that’s why, in the wake of a humiliating 70-33 Orange Bowl defeat to West Virginia last night, we now start looking at how the future of Clemson’s football program might be affected. Sure, the shock of what happened in Sun Life Stadium last night is probably only starting to wear off for Tigers players and coaches now (if it has yet at all), but in less than a month, Clemson’s 2012 recruiting class signs on the dotted line. Plenty of good players out there have the Tigers as one of many potential destinations, and the events of last night could play a role in where they end up…or don’t. Don’t believe us? Here’s Dallas Jackson of Rivals:

Receiver from Naples (Fla.) had Clemson listed on his Top 6 schools, but scratched it off. I asked why. He said, “Last night”

Yeah, the Orange Bowl was that bad. So bad that it should have such a big impact on where a kid decides he’s spending the next four critical years of his life? That’s debatable. But that it is having an impact seems undeniable. We think about how the games might affect recruiting practically as much as we do the other way around. That’s the current state of college football. It’s something else to follow, so we follow it. And for Clemson fans, it’s too bad last night’s game could have such lasting impact. Because if there’s anything you’d want to forget as quickly as possible, it was that disaster.

Getty photo (by Streeter Lecka), via