In his first full season as defensive coordinator, Wes Goodwin helped Clemson rank in the Top 25 nationally in points allowed per game (22nd, 20.9), rushing yards allowed per game (13th, 102.7), yards allowed per carry (ninth, 3.25), sacks (tied for fourth, 44), tackles for loss (second, 111) and passes defensed (ninth, 77). Among ACC teams on a per-game average, Goodwin’s unit ranked first in tackles for loss, second in passes defensed, third in rush defense, third in sacks, tied for third in opponent first downs, fourth in scoring defense, and fifth in interceptions. Goodwin’s unit reached those statistical heights despite significant turnover in the back seven that resulted in the departure of five 2021 starters with an incredible 269 combined games of experience.
This year, led by two stars in his linebacker group that emerged following those departures as well as some surprise returners, Goodwin’s unit will attempt to continue to build upon the defensive foundation that has helped propel Clemson to seven of the last eight ACC titles.
DEFENSIVE TACKLES
Many at Clemson felt the program recorded a coup in welcoming former Clemson defensive tackle Nick Eason home in 2022 as the team’s Defensive Run Game Coordinator/Defensive Tackles Coach after 17 seasons as an NFL player and coach and one year coaching at Auburn. Those inclinations were proven right both on and off the field, as his unit’s on-field performance was supplemented by his selection by 247Sports as the ACC’s Recruiter of the Year.
While the unit was hit by the departure of prospective first-round pick Bryan Bresee, it received a jolt from the unexpected returns of Tyler Davis (Apopka, Fla.) and Ruke Orhorhoro (Lagos, Nigeria via River Rouge, Mich.), two now-fifth-year players who elected to return to Clemson despite receiving positive draft grades from NFL talent evaluators. Davis was a 2022 FWAA All-American who already stands tied with Christian Wilkins, Dexter Lawrence and William Perry (three each) for the most career All-ACC selections by a defensive tackle in Clemson history. Orhorhoro posted 8.0 tackles for loss, 4.0 sacks, five pass breakups, nine quarterback pressures and a fumble recovery in 14 games with nine starts to earn third-team All-ACC honors from Phil Steele and Pro Football Focus in 2022.
Tré Williams (Windsor, Conn.) and DeMonte Capehart (Hartsville, S.C.) are entering their fourth seasons at Clemson in 2023. Williams was a key cog in Clemson’s defensive rotation amid a rash of injuries to the unit in 2021, playing 243 defensive snaps over 11 games with one start that year and contributing 142 snaps in 12 games in 2022. Injuries and depth limited Capehart in his first two seasons, but he emerged in rotational duty late in 2022, including a three-tackle performance in 17 snaps in the Orange Bowl.
Third-year junior Payton Page (Greensboro, N.C.) flashed in his 200-plus snaps over 14 games in 2022, as the sizable interior presence recorded 3.5 tackles for loss, a fumble recovery and a blocked field goal. Redshirt freshman Caden Story (Lanett, Ala.) rounds out the returning scholarship players at the position.
Eason’s Recruiter of the Year bona fides were further legitimized in January upon the arrival of three heralded defensive tackle recruits as midyear enrollees. Peter Woods (Alabaster, Ala.) was a Rivals five-star prospect and ESPN’s No. 9 overall recruit in the nation as a four-time 7A state champion in Alabama, and he is joined at the position by two Peach State standouts: Vic Burley (Warner Robins, Ga.), the reigning Georgia 5A Defensive Player of the Year, and Stephiylan Green (Rome, Ga.), whom On3 ranked among the nation’s top 50 players across all positions in the class of 2023.
DEFENSIVE ENDS
Eason’s NFL experience is supplemented further along Clemson’s defensive line by the presence of nine-year NFL veteran Lemanski Hall as Defensive Ends Coach. Hall’s unit helped Clemson’s defense record 44 sacks in 2022, and the Tigers have reached the 40-sack milestone in nine consecutive seasons — every year of the CFP era — while no other program has exceeded five such seasons in that span.
In 2018, many suspected Xavier Thomas (Florence, S.C.) would parlay his status as a consensus top-five recruit nationally into a “three-and-done” college career en route to the NFL. Thomas has showcased his immense ability at Clemson despite publicly battling COVID-19, depression and illness-related weight gain in his career plus a foot injury that cost him all but 52 defensive snaps in 2022. He elected to return for his sixth season at Clemson credited already with 30 career tackles for loss, 14.5 sacks and five forced fumbles amid his 49 career games with the Tigers.
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Also returning for a sixth season is Justin Mascoll (Snellville, Ga.), a veteran and trusted option on the edge who has already logged more than 1,100 snaps in 53 career games with 13 starts in his career while rotating with a bevy of defensive ends who will be plying their craft in the NFL in 2023.
The NFL departures of K.J. Henry and Myles Murphy (and their combined 65 tackles for loss and 31 sacks in 96 combined career games) have opened playing time windows for Clemson’s other defensive ends. Cade Denhoff (Plant City, Fla.) and Zaire Patterson (Winston-Salem, N.C.) are both entering their redshirt sophomore seasons. Jahiem Lawson (Central, S.C.), the younger brother of former Clemson All-American and current NFL defensive end Shaq Lawson, also returns after redshirting in 2022.
Clemson added three defensive ends in its 2023 recruiting class. T.J. Parker continued Clemson’s recent pipeline from Phenix City, Alabama’s Central High School and enrolled at Clemson in January. This summer, he will be joined by David Ojiegbe (Largo, Md.) and A.J. Hoffler (Stuart, Fla. via Atlanta, Ga.) as part of Clemson’s infusion of youth at the position.
LINEBACKERS
Arguably no position group faced a steeper learning curve for 2022 than the linebackers, a unit that had to replace 69-game veteran and multi-time All-ACC selection James Skalski and 53-game veteran and current Buffalo Bill Baylon Spector. In his first season overseeing the unit, Linebackers Coach Wes Goodwin masterfully developed a pair of precocious talents that now enter 2023 as one of college football’s premier linebacking duos.
Upon his arrival at Clemson in 2021, there was no doubting the football pedigree of Jeremiah Trotter Jr. (Hainesport, N.J.), the son of “Axe Man” Jeremiah Trotter, a four-time Pro Bowler and veteran of 12 NFL seasons. In his first season as Clemson’s Mike linebacker, “Axe Man Jr.” was a revelation, earning second-team All-America honors from the Associated Press after starting all 14 games and leading the team in tackles (92) and tackles for loss (13.5), tying for the team lead in sacks (6.5) and adding six pass breakups, a forced fumble and an interception return for a touchdown. He was one of only three Power Five players in 2022 to reach at least 13 tackles for loss, six sacks and return an interception for a touchdown, joining two-time Nagurski Award winner Will Anderson Jr. of Alabama and national championship participant Dee Winters of TCU, and Trotter was the only member of that trio also to produce a forced fumble.
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Trotter’s running mate at the position in the 2021 recruiting class was Barrett Carter (Suwanee, Ga.), a fluid athlete whom Dabo Swinney has repeatedly called “one of the best pure football players I’ve had in 20 years.” Carter earned fourth-team All-America status from Phil Steele after he posted 77 tackles (10.5 for loss), 5.5 sacks, eight pass breakups, two interceptions and two forced fumbles in a unit-high 832 snaps over 13 games (all starts) in 2022. Prior to Carter and two others in 2022, the last two Power Five conference players to reach 10 tackles for loss, five sacks, two forced fumbles and two interceptions in a season were Georgia’s Nakobe Dean in 2021 and Clemson’s Isaiah Simmons in 2019, years in which both players won the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker.
Clemson’s coaching staff is confident in its ability to replace NFL-bound linebacker Trenton Simpson in part because of the eye-opening performance of now-sophomore Wade Woodaz (Tampa, Fla.) down the stretch in 2022. Woodaz blocked a punt in his first career game, and late in the season, his versatility helped him start the ACC Championship Game at safety and serve as the team’s primary Sam linebacker — and record two tackles for loss — in Simpson’s absence in the Orange Bowl.
The unit will seek to further develop two second-year players who redshirted a season ago: T.J. Dudley (Montgomery, Ala.) and Kobe McCloud (Tampa, Fla.). Goodwin also added two true freshmen at the position in the 2023 recruiting class, securing the signatures of midyear enrollees Dee Crayton (Alpharetta, Ga.) and Jamal Anderson (Buford, Ga.), the latter of whom is the son of the eight-year NFL running back and former All-Pro of the same name.
CORNERBACKS
Now entering his 11th season guiding Clemson’s cornerbacks, Assistant Head Coach/Cornerbacks Coach Mike Reed is Clemson’s longest-tenured position coach. He produced both first-team All-ACC corners in 2021 and oversaw a breakout stretch run by a young member of his unit in 2022.
Nate Wiggins (Atlanta, Ga.), called by teammates and coaches as one of Clemson’s most naturally gifted corners in recent memory, made a sophomore leap down the stretch of his second season in 2022. His 12 pass breakups were one shy of the Clemson sophomore record of 13 shared by James Lott (1987) and Justin Miller (2003) and were the most by a Clemson defender of any classification in a season since Coty Sensabaugh’s 13 in 2011. His highlight 98-yard interception return in the ACC Championship Game was the longest play in the game’s history and the second-longest interception in Clemson history.
Wiggins will once again benefit from the accessibility of veteran wisdom, as Sheridan Jones (Norfolk, Va.) opted to use his free year of eligibility from the COVID-19 pandemic to return for a fifth season at Clemson. Jones started all 10 games in which he appeared in 2022, pushing his career totals to 48 games and 21 starts.
Two of Clemson’s cornerback signees in 2022 — Toriano Pride Jr. (St. Louis, Mo.) and Jeadyn Lukus (Mauldin, S.C.) — each had moments to shine in their true freshman campaigns. Pride notched an interception in Clemson’s prime-time win against No. 10 NC State and recorded a safety against Miami (Fla.), while Lukus snagged a highlight-reel interception of North Carolina’s Drake Maye in the ACC Championship Game. The duo comprised two of Clemson’s three cornerback signees in 2022, joining Myles Oliver (Villa Rica, Ga.), who missed every game except the Orange Bowl in 2022 while rehabbing from shoulder surgery.
Clemson added another trio of cornerbacks in its 2023 recruiting class. Shelton Lewis (Stockbridge, Ga.) immediately impressed coaches and teammates during bowl practices after enrolling early. The group will welcome Branden Strozier (Lovejoy, Ga.) and Avieon Terrell (Atlanta, Ga.) this summer. Terrell is the younger brother of former Clemson cornerback A.J. Terrell, now an All-Pro performer for the Atlanta Falcons.
SAFETIES
Goodwin and Reed weren’t the only Clemson defensive coaches facing the departure of substantial experience from their 2021 units in 2022. While replacing 65-game veteran safety Nolan Turner, Co-Defensive Coordinator/Safeties Coach Mickey Conn mixed and matched his safeties in 2022 while helping Clemson to its 10th consecutive top-25 finish in scoring defense at 20.9 points per game.
The most veteran member of Conn’s safety group is Jalyn Phillips (Lawrenceville, Ga.), who elected to use his free COVID year to return for a fifth season at Clemson. Named by his teammates as a permanent team captain in 2022, Phillips started all 14 games, finished second on the team in tackles (82), and added four pass breakups, an interception, and a fumble recovery in 667 defensive snaps.
Clemson also welcomes back a pair of productive safeties with prominent last names for their fourth years in the program. R.J. Mickens (Southlake, Texas), son of nine-year NFL veteran Ray Mickens, is Clemson’s active career leader in interceptions (five), while Tyler Venables (Clemson, S.C.), son of former Clemson coordinator and current Oklahoma coach Brent Venables, has fashioned himself into a key defensive and special teams contributor in playing 34 games over the last three seasons.
Andrew Mukuba (Austin, Texas) was the ACC’s Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2021 but battled through elbow, knee and ankle injuries in 2022 while starting at both safety and cornerback at various points of the season. Clemson’s scholarship safety group will also include two second-year players: Sherrod Covil Jr. (Chesapeake, Va.), who played 13 games in his debut season in 2022, and Kylon Griffin (Montgomery, Ala.), who appeared in two games while redshirting.
Two of Clemson’s three signees at safety in the class of 2023 joined the program as midyear enrollees. Khalil Barnes (Athens, Ga.) was a multi-time player-of-the-year honoree in his district in Georgia, and Kylen Webb (Tampa, Fla.) was a multi-position and multi-sport athlete at Florida’s Sumner High School. Milton High School’s Rob Billings (Atlanta, Ga.) will round out the trio in the summer.
