CLEMSON — From 1994-2010, few teams won as many baseball games and went to as many College World Series as Clemson.

Jack Leggett had the program playing at a high level for much of that 17-year run. Six of his teams won 50-plus games. Nine of his teams played in a Super Regional and six moved on to the CWS.

Clemson baseball was humming. Then came 2009.

In 2009, the NCAA placed restrictions on scholarship distribution and roster size. Schools still had to use 11.7 scholarships at the time, however, they could no longer give scholarships less than 25-percent and only 27 players could receive scholarship dollars on a 35-man roster.

“It was a tough thing to deal with,” Leggett said in an exclusive interview with The Clemson Insider.

It got tougher when other schools, such as Virginia, Vanderbilt and North Carolina, found creative ways to get around the limitations. How did they do it?

“Everybody had some deals,” Leggett said.

Those deals were Georgia’s Hope Scholarship, the Academic Common Market and high Academic Endowments to name a few of the ways some schools were getting around the limitations.

“They were able to meet one hundred percent of the student-athletes need,” Leggett said. “In doing so, they could recruit more kids that had financial need. In doing so, they made the scholarship go twice as far as ours was.

“We really did not have anything except the life scholarship, and we really did not have as much financial aid at all. So, it was a disadvantage for a long, long time.”

What it did was affect the Clemson Baseball Program.

Clemson could no longer pull in the top players in the country as Leggett did for nearly two decades. All of sudden those players started going to places like Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Vanderbilt.

Why? Because those schools could pay for almost or most of the student-athlete’s scholarships.

Does it sound somewhat familiar?

Like the 2009 baseball rule, the transfer portal, the one-year transfer rule and Name, Image and Likeness have changed the way teams recruit and manage their roster. However, it’s not just baseball that is affected by these rules, it is every sport.

Every school across the country has formed collectives to help combat the NIL. For some—like LSU and Tennessee—it has become a source of pride as they have used it to build championship contending programs.

At Clemson fans have not embraced the change nearly as well as some of their competitors.

“It is critical that Clemson nation support Name, Image and Likeness,” said one of Dear Old Clemson’s Founders Robert MacRae.

Dear Old Clemson is one of two collectives that has helped support Clemson’s Student-Athletes over the past two years. Tiger Impact is the other. However, MacRae, who graduated from Clemson in 1987 feels there is a collation between Clemson’s recent struggles in football and NIL. NIL began in 2021 and the Tigers have gone from being a yearly College Football Playoff contender to a team that is struggling to make a bowl game this season.

“We don’t want to see the same thing happen to Clemson football that happened to Clemson baseball,” he said. “Whether you like it or not football is now a financial decision for every recruit, transfer and their family.

“Clemson baseball hasn’t won a regional since it became a financial decision. We don’t want the same thing to happen to Clemson football.”

With the Tigers struggling through a 4-4 season thus far, there has been plenty of talk on the message boards, X and Facebook about who the Tigers can pull from the transfer portal to help turn things around.

MacRae feels a strong NIL program is critical piece for Clemson to be able to be effective in the portal and retain their top players.

“There is plenty of talk about what the coaching staff and others can do differently right now,” he said. “A competitive NIL program is critical for Clemson to be able to bring in the players to compete with the top teams in the nation.

“I hope boosters, fans and businesses will do their part.”

If not, Clemson’s fall in football could look a lot similar to the fall the baseball program experienced 13 years ago.

However, unlike then, Clemson fans have an opportunity to prevent this one from happening.

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