Special teams coach Danny Pearman and the Clemson Tigers are 10 days separated from opening night against Georgia Tech and with the game fast approaching, the team continued working towards another national championship Monday morning at practice.
Pearman took the time to talk after practice about the specials teams.
B.T. Potter is the current top kicker
“It’s still kind of ongoing but I would say B.T. is ahead of them. It’s been a good competition though.”
Multiple specialists may play
“I could see multiple snappers and multiple punters play. We’ve got a really young team. You’re eighty freshman and sophomores out of the one hundred twenty players so you’re dealing with a whole lot of jobs not just specialist jobs. In all of special teams you can see a lot of new faces, in particular the specialist themselves. I think you’ve got a good combination with Will (Spiers), Steven (Sawicki) and Aidan Swanson. All three of those kids we’ll make a decision on over the next couple of weeks.”
Spiers has been ‘okay’
“Will has been okay. Aidan’s pushed him and Sawicki’s pushed him, that’s the three-way competition there. Some days he comes out the victor and other days he comes out the loser. It’s been a good competition there.”
Other return men not named Kendrick or Rodgers
“One of the blessings of having Amari (Rodgers) out and Derion Kendrick is that we’ve had to go out and look at some of these freshman kids. Will Swinney has done a really good job of catching the ball and possessing the ball. Will Brown has been possessing the ball. Some of the other kids we’ve been looking at are Michel Dukes and (Andrew) Booth. Those are three kids we’ve really worked with because those injuries give them opportunity. Kickoff return is kind of the same animal.”
Pearman’s opinion on the hardest part in punt returning at this level
“Everybody thinks they can catch it then ‘poof,’ you’re out there in front of eighty thousand people. It’s kind of like how everyone thinks they can putt it but there’s a big difference in Top Golf and actual golf. If somebody is going to punt it or kick to us we want the ball and we need to be able to make the decisions that at worst, we’re going to come up with the ball.”
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