For Will Swinney, a wide receiver on Clemson’s roster, his touchdown scoring play in last Saturday’s game against UConn will forever be one of his favorite memories. Making the memory even better, he got to share it with his dad and brother on the sidelines.
He lined up as the holder for a 23-yard field goal attempt in the first quarter, and ended up catching the crowd by surprise when he ran it in for a 6-yard touchdown instead to give the Tigers a 10-7 lead.
Swinney credits his teammates for the success of the fake field goal.
“It starts with a great snap from Jack Maddox, he’s been doing an awesome job all year, and then BT (Potter) did a good job with kind of pulling the defense to the side,” Swinney said. “Marcus Tate and Jordan McFadden did an excellent job double teaming that three technique, and Jordan did great coming off on the backer at the last second. Kevin Swint, that’s a defensive guy right there, but he was gobbling up that guy on his one-on-one block. Justin Mascoll did a great job going and getting that linebacker (UConn linebacker). Davis Allen with the kickout coming across. So just awesome execution, and I give them all of the credit because I didn’t even get touched until I got in the end zone.”
Swinney admitted the Tigers needed that spark at that point of the game Saturday, as he reflected on this season compared to his past ones where a spark like that one wasn’t as dire.
“What this year has really done is appreciate winning that much more,” he said. “We always preach it and stuff, but it’s just sometimes hard until you take a few losses and it’s just like “man!” You just see how every team has a bunch of good players and just the value of a win in every single game. Whether it’s at Louisville in that locker room or after Florida State or this past weekend, we are just so happy to win, and it just creates that ‘best-of-one’ mentality that we always talked about.”
This Tiger’s senior season might be coming to a wrap this weekend, but he’ll forever be a Clemson fan. Swinney hasn’t missed a home football game since 2003 and says, “This one means more than any of them up to this point because we just want to finish out strong as seniors.”
Ironically, this home game might be as important as it gets for the Tigers as they take on Wake Forest in a game that carries major implications in the ACC Atlantic Division race.
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