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Jake Fruhmorgen (6'5, 282), an offensive tackle from Plant HS in Tampa FL, committed to Clemson at his school today. Fruhmorgen has offers from most of the southeastern schools, including Florida, Bama, FSU, Miami, and others like Ohio State and Michigan. Florida and Alabama were likely our biggest competition for his services - his father lettered for Alabama in the late 80s (he did not play with Swinney). He's currently rated the 10th best OT nationally and the #80 player overall by Rivals.
Fruhmorgen's recruitment picked up from us last fall when Elliott and Dabo visited him together at his school, then talked him into coming for the Feb. 1 Junior day, when he really fell for the area.
"What I probably love the most is I'm not a real big campus guy, that's one of the cons of Florida is its big campus life, its city environment. I've always been one of those kids who likes to be outside, likes to hunt and fish and live in a rural area. Clemson to me is like a campus out in the woods. I like that a lot."
He will not be participating in any camps this spring because of surgery on a torn labrum suffered this past season.
I think his ranking is legit, and I can see from his film why the recruitniks think so highly of him. He's tall, carries his weight well, and his feet are really good. He shuffles them into his pass set very well without taking too big a step that would make him bend at the waist or lunge at pass rushers. Sometimes his pads are a bit high, but this is normal for a 6'5 guy in HS. It appears his HS runs a mostly-pass offense, because you just don't see enough of him in the dirt and drive blocking to get a real feel for that part of his game. At least not from anything I see on Hudl. I suspect he'll need to put on some more mass, but this is the type of OT you'd want to run a zone read with. He can get to that 2nd level pretty quickly.
In short, I see an athlete playing OL, not some big plodding oaf who happens to be bigger/stronger than everyone else.
Fruhmorgen was recruited by Tony Elliott. He's the 3rd OL for this cycle, joining Noah Green and Mitch Hyatt. Clemson's plan is to take 4, 5 if theres an oversign and some attrition on this roster. I think Hyatt's film shows more of the run-blocking and he's been up against the best, so I feel like his ranking is justifiably higher, but their feet are very similar, so either can play LT in the future.
