Tag: Ben Boulware

Clemson adds former captain, National Champion to the coaching staff

Swinney and the Tigers add a familiar face to the coaching staff.

Dabo Swinney and the Clemson football program are adding a very familiar face to their coaching staff for the upcoming 2024 season.

Former Clemson linebacker Ben Boulware is joining the Tigers’ coaching staff as an intern for the upcoming season. Head coach Dabo Swinney confirmed the news, saying Boulware expressed interest in coaching a few weeks ago.

“Ben is going to come in as an intern,” Swinney said. “He reached out to me saying he was thinking about trying to get into coaching.”

Boulware, who earned the Jack Lambert Award in 2016 and helped lead Clemson to a national championship, logged impressive stats during his college career, including 352 tackles and five interceptions.

Swinney set some conditions for Boulware’s involvement, requiring him to attend a staff meeting and five days of All-In meetings. Boulware accepted the challenge and is now the newest addition to the staff. Swinney joked,  “I’m glad he’s joining because he’s been a crappy fan. It is good to have him in the building.”

“He is fired up,” Swinney added, reflecting on Boulware’s enthusiasm for his new role.

Former Tiger Ben Boulware is not confident in Clemson heading into Week 5 against Syracuse

Ben Boulware is not confident in this Clemson team as they head to Syracuse for Week 5.

Former Clemson co-captain Ben Boulware knows a good bit about winning. 

Boulware was a member of Clemson’s 2016 National Championship as a key player on the defense. During his career with the program, Boulware recorded 52 tackles, 26 tackles for loss, 8.5 sacks, five interceptions, 41 quarterback, winning 49 games in a Tigers uniform. 

With a strong history at Clemson, Boulware was recently on the WCCP The Roar “Out of Bounds Podcast,” sharing his thoughts on the Florida State loss and discussing Week 5 against Syracuse. Boulware is not pleased with what he’s seen from the Tigers this season and expects this team to lose more games with the direction they’re going. 

“Do I think we’re about to run the table for the rest of the year? I mean if I’m a betting man, I would say no,” the former Clemson linebacker said. “Unless we do something completely different, it’s about to be an 8-4, 7-5 team this year. That’s what it looks like right now.”

Clemson’s next opportunity to make a statement is against Syracuse on the road. Boulware knows how tough it is to play on the road against the Orange and is not confident in the Tigers heading into the matchup. 

“This is going to be a tough game against Syracuse. … My senior year, we went to Syracuse, and I played the worst game I’ve ever played in my entire life,” said Boulware. “We prepared for a spread offense, and then we go up there, and they’re running like a triple option. I begged coach (Brent) Venables to take me out of the game because I didn’t know what was going on,” Boulware said. “But that dome – it fits three people in it, but it gets loud. It’s super small. And they’re a 4-0 team right now. So I’m not feeling too confident go up to New York right now.” 

The concern is understandable, and Boulware certainly has a different insight than most as a former player. That being said, I feel this Clemson team has shown more promise than he’s leading on. He mentions how the Orange have “some freakin juice that we don’t have,” but I’d argue that isn’t true.

There’s no denying this isn’t the same program that Boulware was a part of, but the talent is there. They just need someone to step up and lead the team to success. 

Clemson can make a huge statement on Saturday with a win against Syracuse. 

Former Clemson athletes working to enhance fan experience with NIL venture

The name, image and likeness era has arrived in college athletics with the student-athletes in mind. As part of a new endeavor to help put money in the pockets of Clemson’s athletes, a pair of former Tiger football players are aiming to take the fan …

The name, image and likeness era has arrived in college athletics with the student-athletes in mind. As part of a new endeavor to help put money in the pockets of Clemson’s athletes, a pair of former Tiger football players are aiming to take the fan experience to another level.

Ben Boulware and Darien Rencher are spearheading the Palmetto Cat Crew, an NIL community exclusive to Clemson. A part of The Players’ Lounge NFT umbrella, the Palmetto Cat Crew is contracting with 12 current Clemson football players to give fans unprecedented access to the athletes.

“We’re basically selling all-access passes to members of the Clemson football team to enhance the Clemson football experience,” said Rencher, who spent six years as a running back for the Tigers before wrapping up his collegiate career last season. 

For $200, fans will get exclusive interactions with the players, which include defensive linemen KJ Henry, Xavier Thomas and Tyler Davis, linebacker Trenton Simpson, offensive lineman Jordan McFadden and safety Andrew Mukuba. Memberships will include private chats as well as in-person events, the nature of which are still in the planning stages.

Rencher said the group is looking at having at least one event during Clemson’s bye week in late October. A golf outing and exclusive video-game sessions are possibilities. Other potential events include a gym class in which fans are instructed by players of their choice, meet-and-greet tailgates during at least one home football game this fall, Rencher said.

Rencher said the group is aiming to hold at least four in-person events this year. The objective, he said, is to give paying members their money’s worth.

“I want people to leave thinking, ‘I only paid $200 for this experience?’ I don’t want people to leave and be like, ‘I paid $200 for that experience, and I don’t feel like I got enough,’” Rencher said. “Me and Ben’s job is literally to make people’s experience well worth their while.”

Rencher said he and Boulware, an All-American linebacker on Clemson’s 2016 national championship team, hope to have a more concrete plan on the events by July 23. That’s when the Palmetto Cat Crew will hold a launch event at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta.

Fans will be able to start purchasing memberships at that time. Rencher said 60% of the money made through the Palmetto Cat Crew will go to its partner athletes. The Players’ Lounge will get 30% while Rencher and Boulware will split 10%.

“I really feel like it’s a win-win for everybody involved,” Rencher said.

Georgia, Alabama, LSU, Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Oklahoma are some of the other schools that are offering the same kind of NFT membership to their fans.

“We’re just trying to get as many eyeballs on the project as possible because we feel like once people understand what we’re doing, to enough people, it will be a no-brainer to be a part of it,” Rencher said.

Dear Old Clemson’s first event is July 24. Now there is a new way to support Clemson student-athletes. Come out and meet the freshmen football players at this meet and greet autograph session. If you sign up for certain club levels you get free access to all Dear Old Clemson events. Purchase your tickets today at Dear Old Clemson.

The day Clemson ‘arrived’ in the Swinney era

This season’s national champion in college football will be decided Monday in a rematch between Georgia and Alabama, but Sunday marks the anniversary of an important championship at Clemson. Dabo Swinney’s vision of taking the Tigers to the top of …

This season’s national champion in college football will be decided Monday in a rematch between Georgia and Alabama, but Sunday marks the anniversary of an important championship at Clemson.

Dabo Swinney’s vision of taking the Tigers to the top of the mountain in the sport became reality on Jan. 9, 2017. Clemson knocked off Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide in an instant classic inside Raymond James Stadium to claim the first national championship in the Swinney era and just the second in school history.

It was doubly sweet for the Tigers after how bitter the ending to the previous season turned out to be.

Clemson laid the foundation of what was to come in 2015 when it started its run of six straight College Football Playoff appearances. With an emerging star at quarterback in sophomore Deshaun Watson, the top-seeded Tigers went into their first-ever CFP title game undefeated that season, which included a blowout win over Oklahoma in one national semifinal.

Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson (4) kisses the National Championship trophy after the Tigers defeated Alabama 35-31 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa on Monday, January 9, 2017.

Alabama won the other in a romp over Michigan State to set up the first national title matchup between Clemson and Swinney’s alma mater. Yet despite a record-setting performance by Watson, whose 478 total yards of offense are still the most in national title game history, Clemson came up just short in a shootout, 45-40.

Watson, Swinney and the rest of the Tigers exacted their revenge a year later in Tampa.

Clemson-Alabama, Part II, was another heart-pounder with the teams going back and forth after the Tigers rallied from a 10-point deficit entering the fourth quarter. Clemson took its first lead on Wayne Gallman’s touchdown plunge with just 4 minutes, 38 seconds left.

Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts put the Crimson Tide back in front, 31-28, with a 30-yard touchdown scramble. Clemson got the ball back one last time with 2:01 remaining, needing at least a few first downs to set up a tying field-goal attempt and 68 yards for a winning touchdown.

Jan 9, 2017; Tampa, FL, USA; Clemson Tigers wide receiver Mike Williams (7) catches a pass over Alabama Crimson Tide defensive back Anthony Averett (28) in the 207 College Football Playoff National Championship Game at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Bart Boatwright/The Greenville News via USA TODAY Sports

On the Tigers’ collective mind, there was only one option.

“We were not playing for overtime,” Swinney said afterward. “We were going for the win. That’s our mentality.”

The Tigers quickly moved into Alabama territory thanks to a long completion from Watson to Mike Williams. Clemson eventually got inside the 10-yard line on an acrobatic 17-yard reception by tight end Jordan Leggett, but only 14 seconds remained.

Watson threw incomplete on first-and-goal. He looked for Williams on second-and-goal, but the Tigers’ junior receiver, who caught a touchdown earlier in the game, was interfered with, giving Clemson a fresh set of downs at the 2 with just 6 seconds on the clock.

That was enough time for the Tigers to win it on the next play when Watson rolled out and found Hunter Renfrow in the front corner of the end zone for a touchdown with just 1 tick left, giving Clemson its first national championship since 1981.

Clemson Twide receiver Hunter Renfrow (13) catches the game winning touchdown against Alabama defensive back Tony Brown (2) during the fourth quarter in the 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship Game at Raymond James Stadium. (photo by Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)

“Never in a million years did I think I would catch the game-winning pass,” Renfrow said then.

Watson went 36 of 56 passing for 420 yards and accounted for four touchdowns in the win to earn offensive MVP honors. Linebacker Ben Boulware was named defensive MVP. The Tigers have won another national championship since, again beating Alabama in the teams’ third title matchup to cap the 2018 season.

But five years ago today marked the Tigers’ national breakthrough under Swinney.

“(Alabama has) been the standard for a long time, but not anymore,” Boulware said then. “Clemson has arrived. Clemson is here. We are back on top.”

Jan 9, 2017; Tampa, FL, USA; Clemson Tiger head coach Dabo Swinney celebrates with the trophy after a 35-31 victory against the Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship Game at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

Clemson Variety & Frame is doing their part to help bring you some classic new barware and help one of the local businesses that helps make Clemson special.

Order your Nick’s barware and do your part to help.  #SaveNicks

Former Tiger still has nightmares about Venables

A former Clemson football standout still has nightmares about the look he got from former Tigers defensive coordinator Brent Venables after making a miscue on the field in the 2015 national championship game against Alabama. Ben Boulware – a former …

A former Clemson football standout still has nightmares about the look he got from former Tigers defensive coordinator Brent Venables after making a miscue on the field in the 2015 national championship game against Alabama.

Ben Boulware — a former All-ACC and All-American linebacker who played for the Tigers from 2013-16 — joked on Twitter about the stare he got from Venables after Boulware failed to fill a gap on defense against the Crimson Tide, allowing former Bama running back Derrick Henry to race 50 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter of their eventual 45-40 win over the Tigers in Glendale, Ariz.

Boulware joked “there is nothing scarier” than a stare from Venables and gave Oklahoma players a fair warning about their new head coach, telling them to “get ready”:

Clemson Variety & Frame is doing their part to help bring you some classic new barware and help one of the local businesses that helps make Clemson special.

Order your Nick’s barware and do your part to help.  #SaveNicks

Boulware finding success in his Plan B

Ben Boulware always knew that football wasn’t forever, but what the former Clemson national champion didn’t know in 2017 was that would soon become his reality. After short stints in the NFL with both the Carolina Panthers and the San Francisco …

Ben Boulware always knew that football wasn’t forever, but what the former Clemson national champion didn’t know in 2017 was that would soon become his reality. After short stints in the NFL with both the Carolina Panthers and the San Francisco 49ers, the linebacker soon decided that it was time to hang up his cleats and move on to his next chapter.

“I always had a plan b,” Boulware told The Clemson Insider. “Coach [Dabo] Swinney, really with Paw Journey and a lot of things they’re doing now, are really trying to put that right in those guys’ faces to have a plan b because it’s going to happen at some point. Luckily, I had one.

“So, come 2017, I tried with the Panthers and the 49ers and had some tryouts, but then just got miserable. It wasn’t fun anymore and I was trying to fight for a practice squad spot, and I was like, ‘that’s not my dream.’ I know I had a solid career at Clemson, that was the pinnacle, and I just had to make a decision, hey it’s done with and it’s okay, nothing wrong with it, and just like went full force into business.”

Fast-forward four years later and Boulware has taken full advantage of his plan b, opening The Junkyard, a HIIT-style gym in his hometown of Anderson, S.C., alongside business partner Marcus Brown in 2017 and later adding a second location to the Greenville area in May of 2020.

“We are first and foremost a HIIT studio,” Boulware said. “What HIIT means is high intensity interval training, so it’s an anaerobic exercise. We have a treadmill station, a cycle station, a rower station, and then a mat station where we do like functional movements, kettlebells, dumbbells, medicine balls — you name it, we have it. We don’t do barbell work, but we base all of the workouts off of the stations and intervals, but we also do them off of this [patented] music software we created.”

Looking back to 2017 to where he is now, the football star turned business owner can’t help but remember the times when they were literally building their dreams, brick by brick, until the opening of the Anderson location in 2018.

But for Boulware, the grind was well worth it.

“We built our Anderson studio by our hands, so we’re like laying the concrete, doing the plumbing, doing the shower tile, and it’s a multitude of video memories of me and Marcus, extremely dirty and laying concrete to get the gym open. But that’s what you have to do,” Boulware told TCI. “We built it from the ground up, which makes the fruit that much sweeter because we dug to get some labor out of it. It’s cool now to see some growth, see us make some changes, and open new locations, but that’s only because we were down and dirty to do the shower tile.”

Now four years removed from football, Boulware is ready for his next challenge. The former national championship defensive MVP knew he needed a change and a new goal to chase, so he decided to go after what is considered one of the most physically demanding sporting events in the world: An Ironman.

“I’m the person that needs like a goal or a challenge to fight for and I didn’t have that,” Boulware continued. “I hopped on the scale one day and it said like 268, and I was like this is tough for me and I’m gonna make a change. I need to sign up for the most aggressive thing possible to actually light a fire under my butt, so I signed up for an Ironman. I texted Marcus, my business partner, and about five or six of our staff to do it with me, and somehow, I convinced them to do it. So, there are about nine or ten of us that are on our staff that are doing the Ironman in Panama City in November. It really just came from me trying to find the most challenging thing I could do because I need to lose weight and I’m currently about 40 pounds down.”

Time to get the latest Clemson apparel to show your Tiger pride. Order your officially licensed Clemson gear right here!

Boulware: Venables is worth every penny

Last week the Clemson University Board of Trustees Compensation Committee approved a pay raise and contract extension for defensive coordinator Brent Venables. Venables received a five-year extension through January 31, 2026, and a $100,000 raise …

Last week the Clemson University Board of Trustees Compensation Committee approved a pay raise and contract extension for defensive coordinator Brent Venables.

Venables received a five-year extension through January 31, 2026, and a $100,000 raise that elevated his salary to $2.5 million. The raise made the Tigers’ defensive coordinator the highest paid assistant coach in the nation.

Former Clemson standout Ben Boulware sat down with The Clemson Insider last week and believes Venables is worth every penny and wants to stay at Clemson.

“I didn’t know he got a new contract, but he’s earned it. There’s always rumors about him being a head coach, but I don’t think he wants that stress or that he cares for all the hoopla that comes with being a head coach,” Boulware said.

Boulware knows that money talks but knows Venables wants to be a Tiger for the long haul.

“Times change and money will make you do a lot of things, but he obviously got the right offer and I’m glad because I know he wants to stay,” he said. “Coach Venables is my guy.”

Boulware played for the Tigers from 2013-16 and was a pivotal part of the school’s first national championship since 1981 when Clemson defeated Alabama 35-21 in January 2017. He anchored the defense at linebacker as an upperclassman and recorded 116 tackles, 11.5 tackles for loss and four sacks during his senior season.

In Boulware’s assessment, he would not have reached his full potential if it wasn’t for Venables.

“I will ‘til the day I die speak highly of Brent Venables he changed my life as a football player,” Boulware said. “He is probably the main reason I had the career I did just because of the football lessons, hard work lessons, being organized, structured and consistent.”

He believes that Venables’ contributions to Clemson on the field are dwarfed by what he brings to the program off the field.

“I wouldn’t have had any of those accolades if it wasn’t for Coach V,” Boulware said. “He is an incredible football coach, leader, father, husband and Christian.”

Time to get the latest Clemson apparel to show your Tiger pride. Order your officially licensed Clemson gear right here!

Boulware sits down with TCI

The Clemson Insider continued its Tiger Legends series this past week. Ben Boulware sat down with Alex Dodd and Abigail Angalet at the second location of his gym The Junkyard in the Village of West Greenville at Poe West. Boulware talked about his …

The Clemson Insider continued its Tiger Legends series this past week.

Ben Boulware sat down with Alex Dodd and Abigail Angalet at the second location of his gym The Junkyard in the Village of West Greenville at Poe West.

Boulware talked about his vision for the Junkyard, reflected on his memories from Clemson, opened up about his relationship with defensive coordinator Brent Venables and more.

You can watch the whole conversation below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llRgnfP04N0&t=596s

Time to get the latest Clemson apparel to show your Tiger pride. Order your officially licensed Clemson gear right here!