Swinney looking for continued success at tight end position with Christian Bentancur

Christian Bentancur arrives on campus this summer after a prolific high school career.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Sun May 05 07:00:03 GMT-04:00 2024

Clemson has had good success with tight ends during the Dabo Swinney era, and the Tigers are hoping it’s Groundhog Day with newest signee Christian Bentancur.

We began a series this week, noting that Clemson’s team is complete.

The final seven members of the 2024 recruiting class will arrive on campus this summer. The First Summer session begins May 14th and runs through June 21st. The Second Summer session begins on June 27th. All of the players are expected to be on campus by that point. The transfer portal is closed for players leaving, and while Clemson can certainly add players at this point, we don’t see that happening.

Who are the final seven pieces of the puzzle? They are, Drew Woodaz, CJ Kubah-Taylor, TJ Moore, Hevin Brown-Shuler, Darien Mayo, Ashton Hampton, and Bentancur. Next up in the series is Bentancur, who hails from Lakemoor (IL) Marian Central Catholic.

Bentancur was rated as a consensus top 125 player nationally by 247Sports, ESPN, On3, Rivals and PrepStar. Rivals ranked him as the nation’s No. 100 overall player, fifth-best tight end and fourth-best player in Illinois, while he was listed as 247Sports’ No. 116 overall player and as the service’s eighth-best tight end and fourth-best prospect in Illinois.

He finished his high school career with 231 receptions for 3,867 yards and 51 touchdowns and finished in the top five in Illinois high school history in receiving yards (second), receiving touchdowns (third) and receptions (fifth).

As a senior, he recorded 21 receptions in a single game against Wheaton Academy and five touchdowns in one game against Christ The King, the second-best single-game figures in each category in Illinois high school history.

“I feel like Christian Bentancur has been committed for ten years,” head coach Dabo Swinney said. “I think he was the first commit in this class and he committed to me really early, and then maybe announced like a month later or something like that. But man, this guy, he is special. He is a big-time playmaker. I really love what we have at our tight end position.”

Swinney also liked the fact that Lakemoor is about 15 minutes from Woodstock, where the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day was filmed.

“You have seen Groundhog Day, right? That’s where he is from,” Swinney said. “He's from that little town. You go by a bunch of cornfields to get through his school, but he's out in the middle of nowhere. You think of Illinois, you think of big city, but he's from out in the middle of nowhere. But that little town, Groundhog Day, is where it was filmed. It's right there. It was kind of cool riding through it. There was a cornfield right there. So a neat to experience recruiting him. And my first signee from Illinois.”