Xavier Dye, a 2007 verbal commit to the football team, has now been thrice denied in his request to receive “a hardship exception for athletic eleigbility [sic] at Byrnes”. I honestly didn’t read all the way through the article, but his last appeal was resoundingly denied. His lone remaining option is to go to court.

It seems Dye’s arguments are only a thinly veiled request to “play for four-time defending Class AAAA Division II state champion” Byrnes High School and to play with hot-shot quarterback and also-2007 Clemson commit Willy Korn. Both players, however, are expected to graduate early and enroll at Clemson in January.

Want to know why Will Korn is ranked the #2 QB nationally in the upcoming graduating class? Well SC started it’s preseason scrimmages last night with teams playing each other in 1 half game scrimmages. In two quarters, Will racked up these stats.

Korn, a Clemson commitment, threw for six scores (four to Deonte Gist) and 328 yards. He also scored the first two touchdowns of the game on the ground, and had 44 yards on five carries.Quarterback Willy Korn came out of the game midway through the second quarter, made a couple of cameo appearances in the second half, and still finished with eye-popping numbers

Wow……that’s all I can say. I am speechless past that. Now just get him in the Orange and pump out performance like that with CJ and JD in the backfield and we won’t even have to worry about the loss of Waters, Coleman and Adams on the defense next year.

We’ve heard time and time again from Coach Tommy Bowden that the strength of the last two recruiting classes are obviously a result of the recent and long anticipated improvement in facilities.

From a Birmingham News column today:

Despite more and more research that suggests there is no direct correlation between athletic success and spending, or between increased spending and athletic success increasing either student applications or donations to the university’s general fund, athletic departments keep spending - and athletic directors keep sounding the “we need more sources of revenue” alarm.

And from a completely different article about recent changes in Clemson’s coaching staff:

In 2002, the average age of Clemson’s nine assistants was 48. Now it’s 42. And Brad Scott, a 51-year-old offensive line coach who is one of three assistants remaining from Bowden’s original 1999 staff, said the infusion of new ideas has also brought a measure of rejuvenation.”It’s been a great move on coach Bowden’s part to hire not only young coaches, but young coaches that are extremely knowledgeable about the game,” Scott said. “I think some of the older guys that have been around a little bit, it kind of brings a little more enthusiasm and energy to us as well.”

It’s probably not a coincidence that Clemson’s recruiting has improved dramatically since Bowden decided to seek out some young guns.

The 2004 class, though not highly regarded by recruiting services, has proved to be far better than the so-called experts believed. [emphasis mine]

Looks like we’re going after another QB:

John Richt, the 16-year-old son of the Georgia coach, has received his first scholarship offer — from Clemson.

Richt–John not Mark–is described as having a “big arm and a good pocket presence” who probably isn’t going to do a whole lot of running.

Help me out here. What are some examples of a kid with D-I talent with a D-I coach? Especially at a big time program?

It seems that Tiger fever is spreading throughout the Carolina’s. No longer are the days where Clemson was limited to recruiting in state as seen by the obtainment of the nations top running back prospect: CJ Spiller, of Florida, over the past year. The same can be said for the next recruiting class, which is already amassing an impressive arsenal of young talent.

From what I have read so far, it seems that a lot of the kids want to get the recruiting process out of their heads and get back to concentrating on getting their high school teams to the championships. Clemson has already acquired the nationally #2 ranked QB, Willy Korn and standout WR Xavier Dye (who we are sad to hear, failed to qualify for the Byrnes athletic acceptance, but that is up for review as the only thing pending the decision was a definitive proof of residence with his uncle). It seems now that the early recruiting has traveled into the neighbors to the north and pulled some kids into early verbal commitments as well.

On Thursday Clemson acquired the verbal commitment of Marcus Gilchrist, a North Carolina native whose talents remind some fans of the former Tiger great Justin Miller. Gilchrist chose Clemson over UNC and Georgia among others. Gilchrist is a 4 star prospect that is recognized as the #9 cornerback in the nation by scout.com.

Clemson seems to be on course to get another 4 star standout North Carolina athlete this week in TE Travian Robertson. Robertson (#14 nationally, scout.com) took his second visit to Clemson in just a few weeks. The main purpose was to personally meet with Tommy, but from the interview it seems that he has already made Clemson home as he enjoyed the campus and the surroundings as well. Robertson plans to announce his decision on Thursday and it seems that Clemson has a pretty demanding lead over the competition, which includes Tennessee, Virginia Tech, South Carolina and North Carolina (U and State).

If the Xavier Dye TRANSFER to Byrnes goes through I may just have to take a Friday trip (or two….or three) to see a game. You see, Byrnes is the same high school that upcoming 5 star QB Clemson commit Willy Korn is currently burning up the stat books. So with Xavier Dye in the lineup you could watch the next generation of Tigers before they even step foot in Death Valley. And don’t tell me that there wasn’t a voice in Dye’s ear of “hey, your gonna play with Willy next year so why don’t you find a way to get on the field and get familiar with him this year?”. If that doesn’t bode well for the Tigers, I don’t know what does.