Former Clemson offensive tackle Tremayne Anchrum Jr. earned his first Super Bowl championship on Sunday evening, as his Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals, 23-20, in Super Bowl LVI in Inglewood, Calif.
With Anchrum’s championship this year, Clemson has now produced 32 different members of Super Bowl championship active rosters that have totaled a combined 40 Super Bowl rings.
In all, four former Tigers were on the active rosters of Super Bowl LVI participants, including offensive lineman Jackson Carman, wide receiver Tee Higgins and defensive tackle D.J. Reader. Clemson’s four players on the teams’ rosters were tied for the third-most of any program in the country.
Anchrum played in 55 career games with 37 career starts at Clemson from 2016-19, helping Clemson to three national championship berths and two national titles. He started each of his final 30 games at Clemson over his final two seasons, helping guide the Tigers to a 29-1 record in those games. He was a two-time All-ACC honoree and finished his career as one of only 23 players in Clemson history to play at least 2,500 career snaps from scrimmage.
With Anchrum’s victory, at least one Clemson player has been on the roster of the Super Bowl champions in each of the last four years.
Higgins and Reader both started the contest, marking the second time in the last three Super Bowls that multiple Clemson products have started the NFL’s title game.
Though the effort came in a Bengals loss, Higgins was one of the game’s standout performers. Higgins scored the Bengals’ first touchdown of the contest on a six-yard touchdown pass from running back Joe Mixon. He became the second Clemson player to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl, joining William Perry, who scored on a one-yard touchdown run in Super Bowl XX to conclude the 1985 NFL season.
Higgins later added a 75-yard touchdown reception early in the third quarter. It represented the longest reception in a Super Bowl since Carolina’s Mushin Muhammad scored on an 85-yard touchdown reception in Super Bowl XXXVIII.
Higgins finished the game with four receptions for 100 yards, recording the first 100-yard receiving performance in a Super Bowl by a Clemson product and surpassing Sammy Watkins’ 98 yards in Super Bowl LIV for the Clemson record. Higgins’ performance was the 51st 100-yard receiving effort in the Super Bowl’s 56-game history, and his two touchdowns marked only the 18th multi-touchdown receiving performance in Super Bowl annals.
Reader registered a sack in the third quarter. It was the second postseason sack of his career and his first since the Wild Card Round to conclude the 2016 season.
Anchrum was a two-time national champion at Clemson and joins Dan Benish, K.D. Dunn, Andy Headen, Terry Kinard, Dorian O’Daniel and William Perry among Clemson players to earn both a national championship ring and a Super Bowl ring.
Photo courtesy USA Today Sports.