Garrett Riley has hit the ground running when it comes to recruiting.

Clemson’s new offensive coordinator almost immediately hit the road after he was hired away from TCU, visiting numerous potential prospects across the country over the past couple of weeks.

After having spent some time at ECU as a part of Ruffin McNeil’s staff, Riley is already familiar with the Southeast region, and he is anxious to get back to recruiting the area.

“Been in this region before, spent four years in North Carolina, so I’m excited to kind of get back to this region of recruiting,” Riley said. “I thought it was always enjoyable as a coach to kind of be able to do that in this region. I think there’s a lot of great players, great recruiting that in the whole, you know, Southeast, Carolinas.”

Last year’s Broyles Award winner, which goes out annually to the nation’s best assistant, Riley has already developed a reputation for being a solid recruiter. However, with his move to Clemson, Riley knows he will now be recruiting a whole different caliber of athlete compared to his days at SMU, or even TCU.

“I think it was the second night we went up north to Pennsylvania and Boston and some places that I probably haven’t been too much,” Riley said. “So it was just cool to experience some of those new things. But certainly it was exciting to kind of get back to this region to recruit the type of type of athletes that we’re going to recruit.“

The Tigers are fresh off a 2023 recruiting class that once again ranks among the ten best in the country. It is the 13th consecutive season in which Clemson has finished with a top-15 recruiting class, and a big part of that is the culture that Dabo Swinney has cultivated inside of the program. It didn’t take very long at all for Riley to personally feel the impact that culture has on recruits and he has already embraced it with open arms.

“The amount of people, the amount of staff, the amount of people just around campus that have just been awesome and just so welcoming,” Riley said. “And not just for me, but some of these recruits that we had visit. Had a Junior Day the other day and just the amount of people that truly touched this program, it’s pretty amazing. And it’s people that are genuine about what they do. I mean, like I said it doesn’t take long to recognize that.”

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