Venables Could Replicate Clemson's Recruiting Model at Oklahoma

Brent Venables represents a new era at Oklahoma in many ways.

His hire of Jerry Schmidt to oversee the strength and conditioning staff is aimed at bringing a certain level of toughness back to the OU program, and Venables’ track record as a defensive coordinator is an obvious shift from Lincoln Riley’s offensive background.

And while the on-the-field product projects to look much different, there is an expectation that the recruiting philosophy at Oklahoma will shift as well.

During his introductory press conference on Monday, Venables stated his Oklahoma program will be valuing their scholarship offers on the recruiting trail, ensuring they do all their background research and really get to know recruits before extending an invitation to join the program.

It’s a unique strategy Clemson has employed for years under head coach Dabo Swinney, and one that Venables has operated under for the last decade.

The shift in philosophy may be jarring to those around the Oklahoma program at first, but Sports Illustrated All-American recruiting director John Garcia Jr. said it’s something that has worked for Clemson as they’ve battled other heavy hitters on the recruiting trail.

“The amount of offers, Alabama and Georgia offer heavy; cast a wide net and then hope to pick and pluck from there,” Garcia told SI Sooners. “Clemson, the total opposite. Very small net that grows at a smaller pace throughout the season. Very evaluation-dependent, very senior season-dependent.

“Not a lot of early offers for Clemson targets over the last 5-10 years; usually junior or senior year is when you start to pick that up. Very much more of an earned feeling when you pick up a Clemson offer, really, compared to most others in the country at this point.”

As of Friday, Clemson had issued 75 scholarship offers in the 2022 recruiting class. By comparison, Alabama and Georgia had both issued more than 200 offers, checking in at 222 and 225, respectively, for this recruiting cycle.

And while some may think recruits could hold the lack of an early scholarship offer against Clemson, Garcia said it’s actually quite the opposite.

“It resonates,” Garcia said. “Kids know, especially in the footprint, right? In the Clemson footprint, their recruiting starts in Atlanta, it bubbles out to the Carolinas, down into the state of Florida. That's kind of their main pipeline group of states. Those kids know as a freshman, as a sophomore, even as they start collecting offers from other places, they already know, ‘Hey, I have to go earn this Clemson offer.’ So when it comes, it's really never too late.

“I haven't had one recruit tell me, 'Hey, you know Clemson offered me in November and I have to sign in December and it's much too late.' On the contrary, that offer has validated a lot of prospects’ recruitments, and it's created a lot of late flips in favor of the Clemson Tigers.”

In some cases, individual recruits are even more excited to get an offer from Clemson, knowing exactly what it entails, Garcia said.

“Nine times out of 10 (when talking to recruits), 'Hey, you're a young recruit with big offers, who you still waiting on?' Clemson's the first one out of their mouth,” Garcia said. “So you're creating almost a dependence on that scholarship offer to validate you.”

Don’t confuse the selective nature of Clemson’s scholarship offers for a lack of recruiting, however. Even though the Tigers aren’t peppering the country with scholarship offers for any player who flashes during one drill at any old recruiting camp, the staff is still putting in the work just like everyone else across the country.

“It doesn't mean you're not recruiting those prospects,” Garcia said. “There are still Junior Days. A ton of ’22, ’23 and ’24s on unofficial visits, on game visits, all the typical offseason evaluation stuff we see everywhere else, Clemson does.

“It's just when the offer comes out, it just has a little more validity behind that statement and it often means you can actually commit to that school, which is obviously not the case that 99 percent of the schools that throw out.”

One potential downside to the Clemson method is the size of their recruiting classes. The Tigers are more selective about who they want to bring in, which sometimes leads to classes ending up a bit smaller on numbers than other schools, Garcia said.

But as long as the roster isn’t getting ravaged by the transfer portal, which for the most part Clemson’s hasn’t since adopting this recruiting philosophy, taking fewer athletes every year can be an acceptable tradeoff.

“Think of it like you're a sniper as opposed to holding a shotgun here, really aiming for guys who fit what Oklahoma wants to become, not necessarily what they've been,” Garcia said. “So patience is going to be preached by Venables as he builds this staff, and I think it's more of a longer play as opposed to a scramble like we're seeing at other programs like LSU, USC with Lincoln Riley, even Miami with Mario Cristobal.”

Only time will tell if Venables sticks to the Clemson way, or if he amends it to fit Oklahoma’s needs. But either way, the more selective recruiting philosophy has a proven track record at Clemson, and could produce success in Norman as well.

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