Dabo Swinney’s annual summer football camps are in full swing at Clemson University and with the camp attracting rising stars like coveted 2023 quarterback recruit Arch Manning amongst many other 4 and 5-star recruits across the country, many wonder what makes Clemson’s camp so special.

For parent and Clemson Alumni Robert McCardle, whose son, Trey, is a 2022 QB recruit from AC Flora High School, the difference is in the training-style sessions that Clemson focuses on rather than the usual combine-style camps put on by other universities.

“The facilities of course are phenomenal, but you go to lots of these camps, and they do 40 [meter] times, height, and weight and all the different stuff and it takes up half the time of the camp,” McCardle told TCI. “This one is just throwing and coaching and everything, it’s none of the measurables. It’s all working on actual drills: rolls outs, throws, that kind of stuff, so it’s been great. He [Tyler] might throw a couple hundred passes in each session here versus some of these other camps he might throw 20 or 30, so it’s very different.”

Wayne Melton, a father of a tight end camper on Sunday, echoed a similar fondness for Clemson’s camp instruction method.

“They actually do training here instead of just like a combine,” Melton said. “It’s one of the best camps we’ve ever been to.”

Another aspect of the Clemson experience is the way head coach Dabo Swinney incorporates his faith into his team. For parents Brandon and Sharonda Walton, this was something that really set Clemson apart from other schools.

“I like the fact that the head coach made it spiritual,” Walton said. “I really love that aspect because we are Christians and some of the same principles that he was speaking to Tyler about was the same thing we teach him at home, so that is definitely a plus. That’s something different because you don’t normally see that in a university, so I definitely love that here. It definitely seemed like it was family-oriented here.”