CLEMSON — Heading into the portal cycle after last season, Clemson was aiming to add along the offensive line.

With guys like Blake Miller, Tristan Leigh and Ryan Linthicum having played their final seasons, the Tigers were set to lose a ton of experience. The plan was to slide Brayden Jacobs in at left tackle and add an experienced lineman from the portal to slot in at right tackle. The argument can easily be made that multiple linemen were needed, but adding one was the direction Dabo Swinney decided on.

Johnnie Brown, Stanton Ramil and Emmanuel Poku were three targets the staff zeroed in on. Brown actually visited before committing to Louisville, where he is one of the starting five. Poku scheduled a visit but never made it, committing to rival South Carolina before making it to campus. Ramil signed with Auburn and is starting there.

“We tried on three or four offensive linemen,” Swinney said. “We felt like if we could find an older tackle… we tried, we couldn’t get ‘em. But it wasn’t for a lack of effort.

Yes, an effort was made. No doubt about that. However, the question becomes, why stop there? After options one, two and three were exhausted, where were options four, five, six and so on? There was still plenty of time.

“Then once we got through those three or four guys, Matt (Luke) just felt like where we were, is we develop these guys,” Swinney added.

Deciding to stand pat meant knowing you were relying on youth and inexperience at multiple spots. Clemson started the season with Ronan O’Connell at right guard and Easton Ware at right tackle. Ware was just filling in for an injured Collin Sadler. Even with as much experience as Sadler had, he’d never started a game at right tackle prior to this season. Ware made his first start at right tackle last weekend.

Either way, how much would this team have benefitted from adding just one lineman from the portal? There certainly wasn’t a shortage of options.

Look no further than ACC foe NC State. Tackle Jimarion McCrimon transferred in from East Carolina. The 6-foot-6, 310-pounder has a PFF grade of 76.9 when it comes to pass blocking, compared to Sadler’s 55.0. This was a guy looking to make the jump up to the Power 4.

Another example would be tackle Jake Taylor, who transferred to Iowa State from Oklahoma. With one year of eligibility left, Taylor could have helped bridge the gap to one of the younger players, instead of having run them out there before they were fully ready. The 6-foot-6, 310-pounder has a pass-blocking PFF grade of 83.4. His run-blocking has been lacking, but it’s the pass that the Tigers are really struggling with.

We have another really good example from the Big 12. Tackle Henry Tabansi, who transferred from Buffalo to UCF, has put together a solid season with the Knights, sporting a PFF pass-blocking grade of 77.5. Clemson or UCF?

Or how about Tyler Ethridge, who transferred to Boise State from the Division II level? His 72.6 pass-blocking grade isn’t elite, but it is almost 20 points higher than what the Tigers currently have at right tackle.

We could go on and on with those. Each and every portal cycle, numerous quality linemen are looking to make the jump up from either a Group of 6 school or an FCS school. A lot are looking to move on from P4 homes.

How different would this offensive line look right now if there were just one experienced tackle added to the roster to help protect freshman quarterback Tait Reynolds? Which leads to one question. Once options one, two and three were no longer available, why was the search called off?

Swinney has quite often referred to his program as a developmental one. During his radio show on Monday night, he dove into exactly what that means.

“We’ve got to develop them,” Swinney said. “You sign a high school kid, you sign a portal kid – like, we signed Donovan Starr. He’s a freshman. We’ve gotta develop him. We signed Elliot Washington. He’s a senior. He hasn’t played. He had one start in his career. He ain’t played no football. He’s played the most football of his whole career right here at Clemson in six ball games. But we’ve got to develop him. And then you get Tait Reynolds, who’s a freshman. We’ve got to develop him.

“Whoever you got, however you get ‘em, you’ve got to develop these guys, and that’s the main thing. And the other part of being a developmental program – as long as we can recruit the best high school kids that we think are our guys, that’s where it starts for us. And then you’ve got to fill it in with the portal guys as you go along, as those needs are either opened up or created in some form or fashion.”

Development. No doubt, that is the name of the game at this level. However, the argument can be made that there are different ways to go about developing. If you want to lean on the high school ranks, you’d best be recruiting at an extremely high level, and the Tigers have not done that over the past five years.

Clemson has recruited the offensive line really well over the past two cycles, at least on paper, but all of those guys are still underclassmen. O’Connell, Ware, Gavin Blanchard and Grant Wise have all played significant snaps through the first six games. All four are either in their first or second season. So is Brayden Jacobs, but he is more the exception than the rule. That rule being that, more often than not, it takes time for offensive linemen to be fully ready.

In fact, another argument that can be made is that playing some of these younger guys before they’re fully ready could impede development by impacting their confidence. Hopefully that’s not happening with some of these youngsters on the roster right now, because a majority of those linemen are projected to have high ceilings.

At the end of the day, the fact that the Tigers pursued portal offensive linemen tells us the staff knew there was a need. Halfway through the season, the fact that it was never addressed is still one of the biggest what-ifs surrounding this team.

– Photo courtesy of Bart Boatwright/The Clemson Insider