Dabo Swinney’s latest update on Clemson’s quarterback competition

The highly-anticipated announcement of Clemson’s starting quarterback for its season opener against Furman is almost ready to be made.

The Tigers will wrap preseason camp on Tuesday before the coaching staff meets Wednesday to set a depth chart for the matchup with the Paladins.

Clemson will practice Thursday and reward reps “as we see ourselves going into the game,” according to Tigers coach Dabo Swinney.

“We’re not going to release the depth chart today, but we will here pretty soon,” Swinney said following Monday’s workout. “We’ll pretty much set the depth chart on how we’re going to go into this game. So we’ll probably put out a depth chart, probably Monday is when we’ll release it.”

Kelly Bryant is the safe bet to be named the starter for the Sept. 1 opener, although true freshman Trevor Lawrence and redshirt freshman Chase Brice have performed well during the preseason.

But it is the senior Bryant who Swinney said has performed particularly well as of late.

“I thought Kelly probably had his best day. He had a great day. Multiple touchdown throws, a really, really good day,” Swinney said following Thursday’s scrimmage, the final of the preseason.

“Just his confidence, it’s night and day from where he was this time last year … His confidence is tremendously higher, the game is just slower for him. As a result, he’s playing faster. He’s processing things faster. He’s being very consistent with his decision-making. He’s throwing the ball extremely well down the field. He’s been very accurate on our intermediate throws. Just really all of it.”

Even if Bryant is named the starter for Week 1, that doesn’t mean the battle is over. Swinney has said multiple times that the Tigers will play multiple quarterbacks and the battle will carry over into the regular season.

While the quarterback battle is getting most of the attention, there are other portions of the depth chart that must be set as well. Co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott has the task of deciding which of his talented receivers will see the field first and the most in 2018.

Scott, who said earlier in the preseason that he believes he has nine potential starters, is making progress as far as figuring out a two-deep depth chart.

“It’s starting to work itself out, but really, all it’s going to be whenever we get that depth chart, that’s not the depth chart for the season,” Scott said. “That may be the depth chart going into the Furman game and there’s a lot of time, a lot of movement in that depth chart from the first game to the second game based off of production and how guys play and our guys know that. But yes, the depth chart is definitely starting to come together.”

This story was originally published August 20, 2018 at 4:57 PM.