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Swinney: Clemson recruiting has 'changed a lot' since title win

Joshua S. Kelly / USA TODAY Sports

Clemson's accomplishments on the field are improving things off of it.

After back-to-back appearances in the national title game and a championship last year, Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney pointed out at ACC Media Days on Thursday that recruiting has become much easier.

"It's changed a lot," he said. "You know, I had to beg Tajh Boyd to let me come see him, try to just get in his house and try to lay out a vision for what we were wanting to build at Clemson, whereas now, as our brand has grown and we've had success, we're going to at least get a conversation. You know, they're going to at least take the call or we're going to get in the school and they're going to come and see us."

The Tigers have excelled in recruiting in the past few years, picking up pillars of their team like Dexter Lawrence and Christian Wilkins. Not to mention the upcoming 2018 class, as Clemson has already secured two of the top three players on the ESPN 300.

"You know, we wouldn't have got a Christian Wilkins seven years ago, but because of our success, you know, we reach out to a guy and he's like, yeah, I'd love to come see Clemson," Swinney said. "And all of a sudden he comes and sees it, and he's like, wow, I like this place, and then he goes to other schools, and he ends up coming to Clemson."

Swinney added that the school's recruiting pitch changed as well. Instead of talking about the process, they're talking about the results.

"I think that's the biggest difference from where we were obviously when we started, because now we can go out and we can - we've got some results that we can share about the vision of our program and the academic success, the athletic success, the development, as opposed to eight years ago it was, this is what we hope to go do and build."

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