{"id":6001,"date":"2017-02-10T18:30:02","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T23:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordoncollegefootball.com\/?p=6001"},"modified":"2018-01-13T00:09:42","modified_gmt":"2018-01-13T05:09:42","slug":"clemsontigers6001","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2017\/02\/10\/clemsontigers6001\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Forward: Clemson Tigers"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the orange and purple confetti is swept aside to make room for the 2017 season, the Clemson Tigers look to preserve the glory as reigning national champions.<\/p>\n

Clemson welcomes back plenty of talent on both offense and defense, most notably Hunter<\/strong> Renfrow<\/strong>, Deon Cain<\/a><\/strong>, Dexter Lawrence<\/a><\/strong>, and Christian Wilkins<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Despite Clemson\u2019s flowing pipeline of talent, it\u2019s impossible to overlook the replacement of No. 4.<\/p>\n

Two-time Heisman candidate, check.<\/p>\n

Two-time ACC Championship, check.<\/p>\n

Player of the Year, check.<\/p>\n

Back-to-back National Championship appearances, check.<\/p>\n

National title, check.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, there are some serious shoes to fill under center.\u00a0 With that said, you can believe the Tigers\u2019 coaching staff foresaw Watson\u2019s farewell long before now. At No. 3 on the 2016 depth chart is junior play-caller Kelly Bryant<\/a><\/strong>, followed by graduate Nick Schuessler<\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0 Still thinking about those stats? Not convinced?\u00a0 Also coming through the pipeline for Clemson is redshirt freshman Zerrick Cooper<\/strong> and incoming freshman Hunter Johnson,<\/strong> who will participate with the team in spring practices. Still not certain?\u00a0 In the midst of their playoff run, No. 1 overall recruit quarterback Trevor Lawrence<\/strong> committed to the Tigers.<\/p>\n

For Dabo Swinney<\/a><\/strong> and Clemson fans, this is great. Continued success on the football field followed by exceptional recruiting are reasons for Clemson\u2019s rising to the top of college football.<\/p>\n

“Like Coach Dabo and all the players before, they passed the torch to us,” said Watson to ESPN. “Tajh [Boyd] passed it down to me and I’m going to pass it down to whoever is next, whoever earns that job. We all know that Clemson is only going to get better, and it’s just going to keep growing and keep growing.”<\/p>\n

While Clemson\u2019s offense remains mostly intact, defensive coordinator Brent Venables<\/strong> will be faced with what looked to be a similar scenario to last year\u2019s season: the rebuild. But can you call it a “rebuild” when you not only restore, but improve<\/em> an entire defense?\u00a0 One of college football\u2019s most talented coordinators with the resume to show, Venables is up for the challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cFive years ago, we were in a different place as far as the understanding of some things defensively,\u201d said Dabo Swinney in talking to TigerNet.com. \u201cHe\u2019s just been tremendous; passionate, a very detailed guy, he\u2019s a great recruiter, he loves the players. He\u2019s a great family guy. There\u2019s just really no negatives when it comes to Brent Venables whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clemson\u2019s ability to reconstruct and recruit top talent won\u2019t be ending anytime soon. The 2017 College Football Playoff title in their trophy case might help.<\/p>\n

Main Photo<\/p>\n

\"\"
TAMPA, FL – JANUARY 09: Clemson University head coach Dabo Swinney raises the National Championship trophy and Clemson University linebacker Ben Boulware (10) celebrates during the award ceremony of the CFP National Championship game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Clemson Tigers on January 09, 2017, at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, FL. Clemson defeated Alabama 35-31 to win the National Championship on a last second touchdown pass. (Photo by Roy K. Miller\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the orange and purple confetti is swept aside to make room for the 2017 season, the Clemson Tigers look to preserve the glory as reigning national champions. Clemson welcomes back plenty of talent on both offense and defense, most notably Hunter Renfrow, Deon Cain, Dexter Lawrence, and Christian Wilkins.\u00a0 Despite Clemson\u2019s flowing pipeline of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":6036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[1486,36,40,1407,680,87],"class_list":["post-6001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acc","category-fbs","tag-brent-venables","tag-clemson-tigers","tag-college-football-playoff","tag-college-football-recruiting","tag-dabo-swinney","tag-deshaun-watson"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}