As Clemson heads into the 2019 season, it has some question marks at certain positions. None is bigger than at tight end where the Tigers lose seniors Milan Richard and Cannon Smith.
There is also the uncertainty of freshman Braden Galloway’s status after he tested positive for a performance enhancing drug known as Ostarine prior to the Cotton Bowl. He was suspended by the NCAA for both the Cotton Bowl and the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, and pending an appeal, he could be forced to sit out all of next season.
With Galloway suspended, Clemson has just three scholarship tight ends on its roster, but it could be two in the coming days or weeks, depending on what graduate student Garrett Williams decides to do.
While others on the team are contemplating a career in the NFL, Williams is thinking about a career in the military, preferably the Marines. He first told the media and fans back in November about his options prior to Clemson’s Military Appreciation Day Game against Duke.
Besides Williams, just redshirt sophomore J.C. Chalk and freshman Jaelyn Lay, who enrolled in school this past week, are the only scholarship tight ends that can play this spring unless the Galloway suspension is overturned.
Clemson also signed freshman Davis Allen last month, but the Calhoun, Ga., native is not enrolling in school until the summer.
After Saturday’s championship parade and celebration, Williams said he still was not sure what he was going to do.
“It is still coming along,” Williams told The Clemson Insider on Saturday. “I’m still not a hundred percent sure yet. I am talking to the coaches. I still have to sit down with them at sometime and talk to them about it. I still have some surgeries to get and stuff like that. So, we will kind of see how it goes in the next few weeks.”
Williams played in 14 of the Tigers’ 15 games this year, starting 13 of them, including the national championship game and the playoff win over Notre Dame. The only game he missed was at Texas A&M. He made the trip with the team, but he was held out after he suffered an injury in practice that week.
Williams did not indicate what the surgeries were for or when he might have them.