UCLA Football Recruiting: 3-Star OL Duke Clemens Commits to the Bruins

Things have definitely started to pick up in the UCLA Bruins recruiting arena. After entering June with no commitments on the board for the 2019 recruiting class, the Bruins picked up a flurry of commitments, and are now rolling that into the middle of July with a major pick-up, as 3-star offensive guard Duke Clemens of the Punahou School in Honolulu announced his commitment late in the night.

Clemens is a 3-star prospect, according to 247Sports Composite Rankings, though it should be noted that that’s the composite score, as 247Sports themselves rank him as a 4-star. Those rankings have Clemens as the 12th best offensive guard prospect in the nation, 6th best prospect in the state of Hawaii, and 235th overall. He is listed at 6’4” and 265 pounds.

Clemens had a host of offers from schools around the country, with Utah appearing to be the biggest challenger for the Bruins for Clemens services, along with offers from Arizona, Arizona State, California, Duke, and Nebraska among others. Clemens is the 5th commitment of the Bruins 2019 recruiting class.

One of the things I noticed while putting together this article was the versatility of Clemens. Clemens plays all along the offensive line; he mostly plays tackle in high school, while he played a good amount of center at the Opening Finals a few weeks ago, and most scouts believe he ends up at guard in college, which is where he’s ranked as far as a recruit. Clemens also plays 3 sports in high school, so there is a lot of talent here.

Duke Clemens, as of right now, projects to be a guy who will really shine after a year of coaching at the college level, as it will allow him to focus completely on football, and most scouts are incredibly high on Clemens ability to play at a high level on the offensive line. More importantly, Clemens is going to be a key piece of rebuilding the offensive line - Clemens is the second OL commitment of the class so far after Beau Taylor committed last month. In addition, it appears the Hawaii pipeline continues to exist for Chip Kelly; Marcus Mariota is from the islands, and DeForest Buckner came from the same high school as Clemens.

Here is footage of Duke’s junior year, courtesy of Hudl:

Welcome to Westwood, Duke!

Go Bruins!