So far, 20 or 30 recruits have toured Clemson’s new football operations facility.

Though the 140,000-square-foot, $55-million project is under construction and won’t open until January, the recruits who have walked through it understand the magnitude of what they’re looking at, and they’ve left impressed.

“It’s already been impressive taking recruits through there now, even with it not being finished,” Scott said. “I think it really just elevates us up one more step.”

The facility has already started to make a statement in recruiting, and it’s just the beginning.

Not only will the facility house a slew of amenities for Clemson’s student-athletes —including a bowling alley, movie theater, putt-putt course, an outdoor seating and grilling area, and even a nap room — it will serve the team, coaching staff and support staff in a number of functional ways, such as tying together the players’ nutritional health with their physical strength, their rehabilitation needs and their overall development as players and people.

When recruits see what the facility has to offer, they get an idea of the culture Clemson has built and is continuing to build.

They see an embodiment of the “Best is the Standard” mantra head coach Dabo Swinney always talks about.

“We want to give our players the best we can while they’re here because they are working extremely hard,” Scott said. “That represents the commitment of the administration that we’re not going to sit back and get complacent and let everybody pass us up so we have to catch up again.

“Coach Swinney has talked about ‘embrace the target’, and we want to do the same things in the facilities. We want to be ahead of the game and be that target.”

The facility isn’t being built just because of the advantages it will afford in recruiting. However, when you add the facility to what Clemson has accomplished on the field of late, it has the potential to help Clemson keep expanding its geographical reach in recruiting.

“It’s a one-of-a-kind facility,” Scott said, “and I think it makes a statement to everybody in the southeast and everybody in the country that at Clemson, our athletics are very important to us.

“There’s no greater time to add those facilities than right now with the momentum that we have already,” Scott said.

Swinney has made it known that Clemson targets recruits who are not only great athletes, but great people, as well.

Thad Turnipseed, Clemson’s director of recruiting and external affairs, said the facility will aid Clemson’s efforts to bring in the type of high-character recruits it seeks.

“If you’re going to do it the culture way, you need the best-character kids,” Turnipseed said recently while taking the media on a tour of the facility. “We need all the high-character, high-quality athletic kids to want to come visit Clemson.

“So, now we’re going to get more kids on campus, and when you get more kids on campus, they like it.”

During the upcoming season, more recruits will have the opportunity to see what Clemson is doing with the new facility and the program overall.

So far, the response from recruits has been what Clemson expected.

“The response we have gotten from the recruits have been great,” Scott said, “just like we expected it to be.”