By FBS recruiting standards, Clemson's recruiting class they signed yesterday is pretty small - and there's a really good reason for it.
According to the FootballScoop Recruiting Scoreboard, Clemson's recruiting class of 14 commits ranked as high as 10th (from ESPN), and Scout didn't even have them ranked in their top 25. For what its worth, Dabo's signing class ranked 18th with 247 and 21st with Rivals.
While that may seem underwhelming to some for the defending national champions, there's good reason behind it.
"I don't know if I have the exact numbers or the exact history, but you have to look back on the retention of our players and guys that stay here at Clemson," quarterbacks coach Brandon Streeter explained to TigerNet.
"The main reason they stay at Clemson is because of the culture and because of their experience here at Clemson. I think that's where you're not losing guys and adding more numbers to that class or adding numbers to the next class that you have to sign, so I do think that's a big part of it."
In the past six signing classes, Dabo and his staff have signed 22, 26, 22. 23, 20, and 29 guys.
"There are schools out there that you see signing 25 every year and if you do the math, you're only getting 85 scholarships. If guys are leaving your program all the time then that allows you to bring in more guys each and every class. That's my opinion. How it got this small - 14 guys - I'm not sure exactly other than we're retaining guys."
"We feel great about our kids, the ones that we have, and we do a great job, in our opinion, of developing them."