Like Chris Sale, McClanahan also attends a second-tier baseball college in Florida. He is a redshirt sophomore at South Florida, because Tommy John surgery sat him down his freshman year. In his sophomore season, McClanahan had an ERA of 3.20, with 36 walks and a staggering 104 strikeouts in only 76 innings. However, he has fallen in mock drafts and rankings because of his command this year: In 71 1⁄3 innings, he has an ERA of 3.41, with 44 walks and 117 strikeouts. In 2018, McClanahan has had only one outing where has has not walked a batter, but to go along with that, in every outing he has had a K/9 of nine or better.