Michigan 5-Star wide receiver Commit Stuns College Football World with Decision to Flip and Join Clemson over..

Michigan 5-Star wide receiver Commit Stuns College Football World with Decision to Flip and Join Clemson over..

 

Clemson head football coach Dabo Swinney was called “washed” during the 2023 season. By the end of the 2024 season, his Tigers were in the first 12-team CFP field representing the ACC as conference champions.

Swinney did that by getting the most out of QB Clade Klubnik who had been underperforming. Klubnik revealed the contents of a conversation between them that changed the game – and it shows that Swinney is anything but washed.

 

I think one of the biggest things after my sophomore year was, which was exactly a year ago, was Coach Swinney pulled me into his office and told me, ‘Hey, I’ve got quarterbacks that want to play here too. I’ve got players wanting to come play at Clemson and come replace you,'” Klubnik said on the “Pure Athlete” podcast. “He told me, ‘I believe in you, and I trust in you. Let’s go to work.’ It’s one thing to have a couple people in your ear saying this and this and this, ‘You should leave.’ When the head coach comes up and tells you that he believes in you, after you just had a not great year — that just kinda flipped something. ‘I want to go play for you even harder. I want to go to work for you even more.’

“(I) went and put my head down and just didn’t give two craps about anything last year in terms of people’s opinions outside of this building. Just went to work and obviously made a big leap in my work — in my play from my sophomore year to my junior year and had a big decision to make just over a month ago on whether I was going to move on and go to the (NFL) draft or come back for my senior year — or other schools still calling. It was an easy decision…

 

“I told Coach Swinney on the day that I committed that I’m coming to win a national championship. And that’s something that’s still sitting on the table for us. That’s why I came back and that’s why I didn’t leave… I love this place so much…The leap I took from my sophomore to my junior year, I want to double that leap and go take another one.”

 

What Swinney did in 2023 is what’s called coaching. Great coaching at that. Being able to personally raise a former 5-star recruit out of a malaise and make him as good as advertised is why Swinney gets paid the big bucks.

 

And why he’s one of the few active

 

halftime, his team had a measly four-point lead, at home, against a Southeastern Conference opponent looking for its first win in league play. Todd Golden, with injuries forcing a third different starting lineup in four games, didn’t waste any time talking about adjustments to the rotation or the defense or anything else. No, his message was simple.

 

“We needed to play harder,” Golden said.

 

And harder they did. Immediately, in fact. Florida started the second half with a 3-pointer from junior guard Denzel Aberdeen, then got another a minute later from sophomore forward Thomas Haugh to take the lead to double digits. The two buckets were harbingers of things to come for both players, but also for the third-ranked Gators, who used a deadly efficient second half to run the South Carolina Gamecocks out of Exactech Arena for an 88-67 victory before a sellout crowd Saturday night.

 

Both Aberdeen and Haugh threw in career-best scoring totals. Aberdeen dropped 22 points and bombed a career-high five 3s to go with three assists and no turnovers in 30 minutes. Haugh finished with 20 points, six rebounds, three assists and a steal. The Gators (22-3, 9-3), in winning their fourth straight, shot 70.4 percent in the second half, including eight of 14 from distance (57.1 percent) and put 51 points on the board for the period, while defending the Gamecocks (10-15, 0-12) at 35.7 percent.

 

don’t have to rely strickly on the transfer portal to bring talent into Coral Gables.

 

It might not have been the top-five recruiting class that Mario Cristobal is used to, however, the Hurricanes still finished with the best recruiting class in the ACC for the third straight year. They look to use some of that talent on day one.

 

Some believe that one of the star wide receivers in this 2025 class will walk in and be a day-one starter for the Hurricanes.

 

“I think On3’s top 100 wide receiver