Germone Hopper Leaves Clemson Football Team

Clemson has announced that WR Germone Hopper has left the Clemson football team of his own accord this week. The Charlotte, North Carolina, native will graduate this year and then play his 5th year of college football at another school. At this point we do not know where Hopper will go, but he could certainly land at any number of schools in FBS.

Hopper finished the 2015 season with 317 yards on 21 catches and 1 touchdown. He saw his opportunities drop with the emergence of Deon Cain, Hunter Renfrow, and Ray-Ray McCloud III this year. Honestly this is a pretty smart move by him. His playing time was likely to drop with the incoming freshman, and at a smaller program Hopper can get more playing time and hopefully fix his concentration, a problem he's had during his time at Clemson. Maybe with a breakout year he could try and latch on with an NFL practice squad as well in 2017.

While this move seems to be beneficial to Clemson, it actually doesn't help Clemson's scholarship numbers for the 2017 class. The upcoming 2016 season would have been Hopper's last season at Clemson as one of 9 seniors. His departure does get Clemson to 86 scholarships right now though. This includes OL commit Cade Stewart who barring another departure will greyshirt. As of right now Clemson will need to see additional attrition this year and next year if they want to increase the 2017 class size from 12-13 players.