The road to a Clemson offer was longer than Jerry “Andrew” Beard (5-10, 198) anticipated, but it appears his patience has paid off. The 2027 tailback from Bogart (GA) announced an offer from Clemson recently, which marked the second extended to a running back from CJ Spiller for this cycle.
Around September, Spiller visited Beard for a game, indicating the Tigers’ strong interest in him as a player. However, by late October, with no offer from Clemson in the fold, Beard was ready to move on from the Tigers, announcing a top five that featured Alabama, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
Beard was unaware that Clemson was not prepared to give up on him.
For some time, the Tigers had only extended an offer to Byrnes running back Tre Segarra, who has been on a gameday visit to Clemson and is a top priority for this staff to land. The Tigers didn’t sign a running back in the 2026 class and have brought in SMU’s Chris Johnson Jr. as a portal addition to replace the loss of Keith Adams Jr. in the portal, maintaining consistency in numbers.
As far as Beard is concerned, his top five is still intact, but the Clemson offer certainly gives the Tigers an outside shot to compete for his services.
“It definitely does,” Beard said. “I’ve been high on Clemson for a while now; it was just hard without an offer to keep them at the top.”
The Georgia native currently holds around thirty offers, including the one from Clemson, and is planning to return to campus in the near future. Clemson’s junior day already features plenty of important prospects returning to campus, and Beard has stated that he will be back on March 7th for the Tigers’ big recruiting day.
The road to an offer was a long one, but for Beard and the Tigers, serious progress has been made.