Let’s Revisit Clemson’s *Other* Positive Tests

There was a positive test in Clemson’s football program on Friday. It was a coronavirus test, of course, but it wasn’t the first time the words “positive test” and “Clemson” had been big news in the last few years.

In case you didn’t spend a few hours this weekend refreshing your memory on that story regarding college football’s 2018-19 national champions, here are the facts, some courtesy of this 2019 piece by Grace Raynor, then of The Post and Courier:

• Prior to the 2018-19 Cotton Bowl, 18 or 19 of Clemson’s players were drug tested by the NCAA, as is standard protocol in collegiate championships.
• Three players, including star defensive lineman Dexter Lawrence, tested positive for ostarine, an illegal (and we mean illegal, not just against NCAA rules) selective androgen receptor modulator, or SARM.
• Those positive tests were all confirmed via B samples, and the two non-Lawrence players (Lawrence went to the NFL after the game) lost their eventual appeal, missing the entire 2019-20 season.
• On average, fewer than ten of the approximately 1,100 athletes the NCAA tests each year test positive for substances in ostarine’s category. In other words, this is not a common positive test.
• From the Raynor article, per Dr. Amy Eichner, Special Advisor on Drug Reference & Supplements at the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency: “Ostarine was developed with the initial intention of having the same muscle-building effects as anabolic steroids but without the dangerous side effects, Eichner said. The drug is supposed to increase bone and muscle density.”

It was a curiosity at the time. Three of 18 or 19 was a significant number. But Clemson whooped Notre Dame in that Cotton Bowl, whooped Alabama in the national championship, and the college football world moved on.

The question is, should it have?

We’ve given Dabo Swinney a lot of credit for building an elite program at Clemson, one that managed to at least pause the Alabama dynasty, if not end it. The credit is deserved. Swinney did build this program. Clemson also has not had positive tests in its other playoff appearances, a significant sample of 18 or 19 athletes every year since 2015-16. And if we’re going to question Clemson’s development methods, we should mention that it’s not exactly unheard-of for moneymaking college athletics programs to break recruiting rules. Cheating is not something that can only happen in player development.

Still, the positive tests remain curious. Especially when you look at the five-year rolling average recruiting rankings, from 247 Sports, of the 24 playoff appearers:

Of the six national champions the College Football Playoff has produced, the two that were Clemson were not built through recruiting, like Alabama’s, Ohio State’s, and LSU’s were (and LSU’s, tied as the lowest non-Clemson among champions, benefited from a certain historic talent transferring into Baton Rouge). And yet, Clemson hasn’t exactly been described as undermatched physically over these last seven years, the way, say, Notre Dame was in the 2018-19 Cotton Bowl.

The point is, we don’t know how Dabo Swinney built this program, but it’s fair to wonder what role PED’s might have played, and what role they might be playing elsewhere. 1,100 athletes is a small number for the NCAA to test each year relative to the possible pool. Three Clemson athletes all testing positive for a rare, illegal substance doesn’t sound coincidental. It’s entirely possible it was a fluke, an honest mistake. It’s entirely possible it was an intentional mistake, but a brief one. It’s also possible that the answer to the “How does Dabo do it?” question is a simple one: One word long. Beginning with the letter ‘o.’