Clemson football RB commitment shoots down recruiting rumors after two Auburn trips

David Eziomume, a four-star running back recruit at North Cobb (Ga.) High School, has attended Auburn football’s last two home games.

But that doesn’t mean he’s wavering in his verbal commitment to the Clemson football team, the rising Class of 2024 recruit told The State on Monday.

Eziomume’s trips to Auburn — especially for Saturday’s huge home game against Georgia — drew attention because they appeared to run against a longtime Dabo Swinney policy that once recruits commit to Clemson, they can’t take visits to other schools.

But Eziomume told The State via text message that he didn’t attend those games as an official or unofficial visitor and potential Auburn recruit. Instead, he said he attended the games as the guest of two different friends/fellow recruits and their families.

Eziomume said he attended Auburn’s Sept. 9 home game against Samford with Jrue Keeling, a friend and 2026 recruit at nearby Alpharetta (Ga.) High School, to help him “possibly get a look” and to watch the game with Keeling’s family.

As for last Saturday’s game against No. 1 Georgia in Jordan-Hare Stadium — a thriller that Georgia barely won, 27-20 — Eziomume said he was there with James Roe, a teammate and fellow 2024 recruit at North Cobb. Roe, a long snapper, has Auburn alumni in his family, “so it was just a moment for him to see something he grew up around once again.”

Eziomume said it was “never my intentions to get recruited” by Auburn. He said he has also “severed ties” with Auburn running backs coach Cadillac Williams and “made it known” to coach Hugh Freeze and the rest of the Auburn staff he is fully committed to Clemson.

The 247Sports website AuburnUndercover had listed Eziomume on its confirmed recruiting visitors list for both games and his trips as “unofficial visits” on its recruiting timeline page.

Auburn Live, an On3-affiliated website, also said in a post earlier Monday that Eziomume is “absolutely the top target” for the SEC Tigers, who already have one 2024 running back commitment and are now attempting to flip the commitment of Eziomume, who ranks No. 372 nationally.

Auburn previously beat out Clemson for four-star 2024 Little Rock (Ark.) Christian Academy quarterback Walker White, who committed to the team over fellow finalists Clemson and Baylor in February.

“He visited for the Samford game and returned Saturday for the Georgia game,” Auburn Live wrote of Eziomume. “Watch out for Auburn and Cadillac Williams. They’re making a big move.”

Eziomume’s star has only grown since he first committed to Clemson, Swinney and running backs coach C.J. Spiller back in March as a three-star recruit.

Eziomume (6-foot-1 and 205 pounds) has rushed for 933 yards in five games as a senior for North Cobb, which is located in Kennesaw, Georgia and competes in 7A, the state’s largest classification.

Eziomume’s 933 rushing yards — which included a 27-carry, 326-yard, four-touchdown game on Sept. 27 — was the most of any player in the state regardless of classification through six weeks, according to Georgia High School Football Daily.

He currently ranks as the No. 33 running back nationally, the No. 42 player in Georgia and the No. 372 player nationally according to the 247Sports Composite, which factors in multiple websites’ rankings.

He has also been one of the more vocal commitments in Clemson’s class, in terms of pumping up the group and publicly recruiting other prospects to join the Tigers, whose 17-man group ranks No. 16 in the 247Sports rankings. Eziomume also visited Clemson for the Florida State game.

Eziomume also shot down Auburn rumors twice on the platform X (formerly Twitter) after Saturday’s visit, posting a GIF of a poker player saying “I’m All In” (a Clemson tagline) and replying to a user “no. wrong tigers” and a Clemson football GIF when they replied to another one of his posts with an Auburn message.

Explaining Clemson’s no-visit policy

Clemson, under Swinney, has tried to differentiate itself in recruiting with a number of school-specific policies.

The Tigers generally hand out much fewer scholarship offers than other top programs, and for years they only allowed prospects to take official visits to campus during the fall. (Clemson updated that rule to allow summer official visits back in 2020.)

The policy in question here — that a recruit shouldn’t visit other schools once they’ve committed to Clemson — most prominently came up in spring 2020 when edge rusher Korey Foreman, the No. 2 overall recruit in his class, decommitted from Clemson with that rule playing a role.

Foreman, a star defender from Centennial (Calif.) High School, had committed to the Tigers on an unofficial visit in January 2020 but decommitted in April 2020 because, according to 247Sports, he wanted to take more official visits.

After his decommitment from the school, Clemson continued to actively recruit Foreman, who wound up going to Southern Cal. He’s currently a junior defensive lineman there.

One-time Clemson safety commit Keon Sabb broke the policy in 2021 when he visited Michigan for a game while committed to the Tigers. Sabb ended up decommitting from Clemson a week later after defensive coordinator Brent Venables left to become the head coach at Oklahoma and signed with Michigan, where he’s now a sophomore safety.

And last year, four-star Thompson (Ala.) defensive tackle recruit Peter Woods admitted he was “thinking about” going to an Alabama game after committing to Clemson earlier that summer.

But Woods, a decorated top 50 recruit who’s now a co-starter at defensive lineman for Clemson this season as a true freshman, decided against it, citing Swinney’s no-visit policy.

“I could take visits if I wasn’t committed,” he told On3 Sports in October 2022. “That’s a strict policy that Clemson has and I don’t want to play with that or the integrity of Coach Swinney’s program.”