Clemson linebacker signee Trenton Simpson is a perfect example of how hard work and patience can pay off.

The five-star prospect from Mallard Creek High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, realized a lifelong dream on Wednesday when he inked his letter of intent with the Tigers.

Simpson’s signature marked the culmination of a long recruiting process that saw him have to wait until four days before signing day to receive an offer from Dabo Swinney’s program.

“It’s unbelievable,” Clemson’s head coach said of Simpson. “I didn’t have a spot for him, and he was patient and it worked out. I think that speaks to who we are as a program and the transparency that we have in the process.”

After accepting a commitment from a second linebacker recruit early this year, Clemson did not anticipate having space for Simpson in the 2020 class.

The Tigers had already locked in on trying to get Upland (Calif.) five-star linebacker Justin Flowe for their final linebacker take, and decided at that point to stay the course in their pursuit of him.

“We obviously knew about him,” defensive coordinator Brent Venables said of Simpson during Clemson’s Signing Day Show on Wednesday. “We filled up really at the position early a year ago in January. We were really pretty much done, and Trenton only played linebacker, a year ago was his first year playing linebacker. It was still a little bit sporadic, wasn’t full-time at linebacker, was mainly at running back, so there was still some evaluation to be done. We recruited one young man. We said hey, we’re just going to keep recruiting this one guy all the way to signing day. Other than that, we were really done.”

Venables was able to see Simpson (6-3, 224) play inside linebacker during the spring evaluation period and came away intrigued by where Simpson was in his development following his first season at the linebacker position in 2018.

The Tigers wanted Simpson to work out at the Swinney Camp in June so they could further evaluate him for a potential offer, in case a spot were to open up later in the cycle. But by that point, Simpson had already narrowed his focus to a short list of schools, and on June 14 he pulled the trigger on a commitment to Auburn.

It wasn’t until this fall that Simpson and Clemson got back in touch.

“We were trying to get him to stop by and maybe work with us for just a few hours, and it just didn’t work out from a timing standpoint,” Venables said. “Followed up, wished him well, and then he ended up reaching back out to us, I believe it was mid to late October. We told him look, we’ve been kind of committed to recruiting this one guy until he tells us that we’re out of it, because of everything that we had invested time wise and what have you. The relationship was down the road further.”

Simpson made the decision to decommit from Auburn on Oct. 20 and then traveled to Clemson for an unofficial visit the following Saturday when the Tigers hosted Boston College.

“We were just very transparent with he and his family and told him do not decommit from Auburn with the idea that we have a spot for you,” Venables said. “If you’re going to do it, you do it because you’re just not happy with your decision. But we said hey, let’s start developing a relationship and see if we can get you back on campus, get you in front of Coach Swinney to meet him.

“Knowing everything that we really knew about him at that time, knew that he was a great fit already. But Coach Swinney hadn’t really met him and spent considerable time. He had come to camp growing up, but it had been a few years.”

While the Tigers were high on Simpson, they still were not ready to offer him a scholarship as they stayed committed to seeing out their recruitment of Flowe.

Once they finally got closure last week with Flowe, who ended up signing with Oregon, they made a move to get Simpson on campus for an official visit last weekend before pulling the trigger on his long-awaited offer Saturday and landing his commitment shortly after.

“To their credit, and we really benefited obviously at the end of the day, their willing to do that and explore his options,” Venables said. “Boy, we’re lucky that they chose to do that because once Coach Swinney got a chance to meet him after he had de-committed, it was really a pretty easy decision. It was really a matter of exhausting our original process, and once that came to a head, it was an easy decision.”

The top-ranked prospect in the state of North Carolina, Simpson led the Mallard Creek defense with 20 sacks as a senior this season while also rushing for 371 yards and six touchdowns on 44 carries.

Simpson, an Under Amour All-American, finished his prep career with 97 carries for 799 yards (8.2 yards per carry).

He is one of three linebackers in Clemson’s 2020 class, along with Fort Valley (Ga.) Peach County four-star Sergio Allen and Carrollton (Ga.) four-star Kevin Swint.

“He’s a guy that has a great deal of energy,” Venables said of Simpson. “Just a very positive, outgoing, upbeat, natural leader. Very talented, explosive, rangy. He’s a vicious, violent player when the ball snaps and very natural on the defensive side of the ball. I think he went for 250-plus yards against Dutch Fork, state champion here in South Carolina, at the beginning of the year — a field that there’s a lot of talented players, and he was easily the best player on the field in that game.

“Just really excited. It’s amazing how quickly things have unfolded and developed with him, and just to know here in just a few days he’s going to be on the campus with both Kevin and Sergio, what a threesome.”

Simpson says he knew at a “very young” age that he wanted to be a Clemson Tiger.

Thanks in large part to a lot of patience, Simpson is a Tiger now and will enroll at Clemson next month.

“I’ve been coming to games and coming to camps,” he said. “This has been some years and a long-thought process to know where I want to be. So, I’m just glad it happened the way it’s supposed to.”

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