Heading into the 2023 college football season, the Clemson wide receiver room will have to perform at a high level for the Tigers’ offense to remain consistent and compete with the top programs in the country.
Following their first scrimmage in Memorial Stadium, Swinney met with the media and discussed how the team’s true freshman wide receivers have looked. Speaking on Noble Johnson, Misun “Tink” Kelley, Tyler Brown, and Ronan Hanafin, Swinney discussed how they’ve been and what we can expect.
“Noble, Tink and Tyler are really in a good spot,” the head coach said. “Ronan has flashed. He’s made some really good competitive plays, but he’s probably got the most to learn at his position. But I feel really, really good about the progress Noble’s made. He’s had a couple pretty good days together. I think it’s slowing down a little.”
Great news for the Tigers, wide receiver is a position Clemson fans have been intrigued by heading into the season. While we know there are players in that room who can ball, someone needs to step up and be a go-to guy for Cade Klubnik. While they may not be ready yet, hearing players are on track is always a good sign.
“Y’all have heard me say – it’s Beaux (Collins), it’s Antonio (Williams), it’s Adam (Randall) and Cole (Turner) and it’s Spec (Brannon Spector). Those are five guys that we feel like we can go play anybody with,” Swinney said. So, it’s about really developing some elite depth after that and hopefully not having to start any of these guys, which we ended up having to do the last couple years. We had to start Beaux before he was really ready to start. We had to start Antonio. We’ve had to do that a little bit with injuries and stuff, so hopefully we can stay healthy and really bring these guys along at the proper pace and develop some elite depth.”
Clemson’s young wide receivers can focus on development rather than performance for the first time in a bit. Obviously, performance matters but practice performance and game performance are two different things. These young guys can do their work behind the scenes and develop rather than being thrust into playing time.
So far, so good for Clemson’s freshmen wide receivers.
[lawrence-auto-related count=1]