STRecruiting: Clemson is hoping the up-close and personal approach will pay dividends in the Tigers’ pursuit of 2028 LB Jay Schell

Jay Schell (6-3, 214) stood in the locker room before the Tigers took the field against Georgia Southern. Usually reserved for commits, Schell was included in the experience as he watched Sammy Brown give a speech to rally his team.

Schell has visited the Clemson campus numerous times and has gone through every aspect of the Tigers’ recruitment process. So, how do you make your final sales pitch different? Why not let a prospect experience the energy of the locker room?

“I even got a little heartbeat, you know,” Schell said. “I got a little anxious, like I was about to play the game, so it was pretty cool to kind of put myself in the shoes like I’m a Tiger on game day.”

Schell is down to Oklahoma and Clemson, and this visit was his final stop before heading to see Oklahoma this weekend and deciding between the Sooners and Tigers. He has said he hopes to decide soon after that last visit.

In Clemson’s final sales pitch, the team got more time with Schell than expected, with a lightning warning putting the game on hold for two hours.

“I think right before then I met with Coach Swinney, talked with him a good bit with my family and his wife in like a secret—I don’t know, like a secret office under the West End Zone that he has,” he confessed. “And so I did that and then went back to the rest of the recruits and just hung out in there. Then the rain delay happened, and Coach Swinney came and talked to the recruits a little bit.”

So, what is Clemson’s recruiting strategy?

Location, life after football, and of course, the legacy; Schell is the son of former Clemson quarterback Matt Schell, have played a large role in what the Tigers are trying to sell.

“That’s part of their pitch: them trying to show me why they’re a better fit for me,” Schell explained. “And a big kind of sales pitch that Clemson has been pushing is like, where do you want to go if, say, something happens, and you can’t play football? Like, you want to go somewhere where you’re happy regardless. And that does tie into the proximity piece, being really close to my house. So they’re definitely—that’s a part that Clemson is using, which makes 100% sense.”

For Schell, it was good to be back.

“I’ve gotten to see and know the whole staff pretty well, you know,” he revealed. “I’ve been blessed to get to know everyone, and obviously with my background, like being around the Clemson area, I know a lot about Clemson football, so there wasn’t really too much like I needed to be shown. But it was good to kind of just be back with them, spending some time with them.”