How Clemson’s start of spring practice in 2018 is different than last year

Clemson opened spring practice Wednesday evening in its indoor practice facility with plenty of proven playmakers on the field at key positions.

At this time a year ago, all of the talk was about who would be Clemson’s starting quarterback and how the Tigers would replace so much talent that was lost from the 2016 national title team.

But entering the 2018 season, Clemson returns the majority of its starting offense, including quarterback Kelly Bryant, as well as the majority of its starting defense, including stars Clelin Ferrell, Christian Wilkins, Austin Bryant and Dexter Lawrence.

“Our starting point this year is a lot different than it was last year as a team, so it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Tigers coach Dabo Swinney said. “Last year, we didn’t have a punter. We had new snappers. We had a lot of transition. This year, most of our pieces are back. So it’s going to be a fun group. We’ve got a lot of bodies to work.”

Clemson had only a handful of seniors in 2017, but that number has increased drastically for this season.

The Tigers already have leadership in place, which Swinney believes will allow Clemson to accomplish more in spring practice than some years in the past.

“This is, obviously, a team that is very veteran-led. Last year at this time, we were sitting there with six scholarship seniors. This team, with our walk-ons, we’ve got like 29 or 30 seniors. I think 21 on scholarship counting (Clelin) in that number. He’s going to graduate in December,” Swinney said. “We’ve got a great, great veteran-led team with a lot of good leadership at every single position, so that’s exciting as a coach.”

Even with proven guys back, there will be plenty of competition. The battle that everyone will be watching this spring is at quarterback, where five-star prospects Hunter Johnson and Trevor Lawrence, as well as redshirt freshman Chase Brice, will be battling with Bryant for playing time.

Bryant is the favorite to win the job and went first through drills on Wednesday. He was followed by Johnson, Brice and finally Lawrence.

Tavien Feaster was Clemson’s starting running back, with Travis Etienne the No. 2.

The starting wide receivers were Hunter Renfrow, Trevion Thompson and Amari Rodgers.

Swinney made it clear that no matter where a player starts on the depth chart during the spring, they will get plenty of chances to earn a starting role.

“I think it’s important to give everybody an opportunity to compete, give everybody an opportunity to demonstrate that they have ownership of their position, to demonstrate that they can go and get the job done,” Swinney said. “So that’s what we try to do in the spring. We’ve got four quarterbacks, and we’re gonna try to make sure all four of those guys get a ton of reps and go from there. But excited about it, ready to go, and it’s just Day 1. We’ll see where we’ve gotta go from there.”

This story was originally published February 28, 2018 at 6:53 PM with the headline "How Clemson’s start of spring practice in 2018 is different than last year."