Not dwelling on past, Deshaun Watson and Dabo Swinney move forward

Projecting Deshaun Watson’s potential impact this season at Clemson has become a cottage industry of sorts as some crunch the numbers and wonder what might have been had injuries not cost him half his freshman season.

After re-watching Watson throw a school-record six touchdown passes against North Carolina in his first start and later beat South Carolina on a torn ACL, the more wistful wonder whether things might have been better for Clemson if Watson began the season at Georgia as the starter.

Dabo Swinney insisted he hasn’t heard any second-guessing, even on the spring IPTAY circuit.

The matter is moot. The good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, Watson will open the season Sept. 5 as Clemson’s starting quarterback. If fan anticipation were any higher, Xanax and herbal tea would be distributed with season tickets – which now number at more than 55,000 and are moving at a record clip.

Nine months after surgery to the knee, injured Nov. 15 at Georgia Tech, doctors cleared Watson for full practice. Watson said he accelerated his rehab in May so he could be ready, but there were days when he backed off. Otherwise, “I’m back in the saddle,” he said.

“If I feel good, then I’m going to do it. If not, then I’m going to hold myself out,” he said. “I’ve been doing it all summer, taking it one day at a time.”

What he missed, if anything, was a little time on the field, further bonding with his teammates and building his credibility as a leader. Technically sound in an offense he probably knows as well as any of his coaches, Watson comes to work.

“He’s just special,” said Tony Elliott, in his first season as co-offensive coordinator. “We all know how gifted he is athletically, but he impresses me every day mentally, command of the playbook, just poised.”

Neither the knee nor the preseason hype seems to have an effect.

“He’s just special all the way around,” Elliott said. “He has some opportunities to improve, and he’s the kind of guy that doesn’t feel he’s arrived. He’s out here every day – hungry.”

Watson thanked a reporter for suggesting he might be the game’s best quarterback.

“That’s something that other people think. Of course, I want to be the best and I’m going to compete, but I don’t carry myself like I’m the best,” he said. “I want to get better each and every day.”

After three significant injuries in eight months last year, Watson understands there are questions about his durability, whether he in fact can handle the pounding of an entire schedule.

Injury prone?

“Not at all. I know who I am and what kind of player I am,” Watson said. “I approach the game like I (did) last year before I was injured.

“I’m not going to worry about taking hits. That’s just part of the game. I’m not going to shy away from that,” he said, adding, “Of course, being the quarterback, you want to limit the hits and slide when you need to, but I’m going to try to protect myself and make sure that I do my job.”

Does that include hurdling would be tacklers as he did to score in the N.C. State game?

“If it’s there then, yeah, I’m going to jump the hurdle,” he said. “I’m just out there having fun.”

Swinney said Watson will wear a knee brace all season. Watson said the brace hasn’t been a distraction during practice and that additional weight and muscle should help allay fear.

“I feel confident,” he said. “I feel blessed to be able to play the game again, help my teammates and go out there and have fun and do something I love.

“I don’t worry about everyone else’s expectations,”

Or their recollections.

When Cole Stoudt was named the starter out of spring practice last year, Watson was recovering from a broken collar bone. In August, he made up for lost time, and by the start of the season, they were virtually even.

Prone to give a tie to the older player, Swinney said there never was any discussion about starting him at Georgia.

“It was an easy discussion,” Swinney said. “It was to the point, you’re going to start but this kid is going to play. We’ve got to find out.

“There was a progression you’ve got to go through, and we just didn’t know.”

Obviously, had the dynamics been changed, there’s no way of knowing what might have happened later, but Swinney said he’s never been asked.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Why wasn’t he the starter?’” he said. “That’s not fair to your program. That’s not how we operate around here. He hadn’t earned it. All he had done is put himself into position to get a chance to earn it.

“It was so close that the only other piece of the evaluation we could put in there was game.”

Yet, now, after a modest but significant sample of his talent, Watson finds himself the ACC preseason player of the year as a sophomore and a nominee for every major award short of the Heisman Trophy.

What if … ?

This story was originally published August 8, 2015 at 9:12 PM.