Upon the departure of Brent Venables for a head coaching job in December 2021, Dabo Swinney elevated a then-relatively obscure analyst into Clemson’s defensive coordinator role. From the 2021 Cheez-It Bowl through the 2023 season, Wes Goodwin has called Clemson’s defense for 28 games, and in those contests, Clemson has held its opponent under its season average in yards per game 24 times and under its season average in points per game 24 times. Goodwin’s units have held opponents 80.6 yards and 8.4 points below their season averages in that span.
Last season, Clemson tied for the national lead in takeaways (28) and finished eighth in the nation in yards allowed per game (287.8). The Top 10 appearance in total defense was Clemson’s eighth of the last 10 seasons, the most in the nation. Clemson enters the 12-team era of the College Football Playoff having finished in the Top 30 in both total defense and scoring defense in every season of the CFP’s first 10 years.
DEFENSIVE TACKLES
The departures of Tyler Davis and Ruke Orhorhoro for the NFL account for the loss of 109 combined games, 82 combined starts and five combined All-ACC selections from Clemson’s defensive tackle group, but the unit is once again being viewed internally as one of Clemson’s deeper units for 2024. In addition to a sterling track record in recruiting, Associate Head Coach and Defensive Tackles Coach Nick Eason is a perfect 4-for-4 in placing his starting defensive tackles on annual All-ACC squads in his two seasons on Clemson’s staff.
Despite playing behind two all-conference standouts, now-sophomore Peter Woods (Alabaster, Ala.) made an immediate impact in his true freshman season in 2023. In 307 snaps, the former five-star recruit earned Freshman All-America recognition from a multitude of outlets. He finished as PFF’s highest-graded freshman among interior defensive linemen and ranked among the top 10 in the Power Five among defensive tackles all of classifications. He cross-trained at defensive end in the spring.
With two of its long-time leaders now departed, the veteran voices in the room belong to fifth-year senior DeMonte Capehart (Hartsville, S.C.), fifth-year Tré Williams (Windsor, Conn.) and fourth-year senior Payton Page (Greensboro, N.C.). Williams took a mid-career redshirt in 2023 while rehabbing but has appeared in 30 career games since 2020. Page played a career-high 238 defensive snaps over 13 games in a rotational role in 2023. Capehart similarly seized opportunity when it was presented, becoming one of Clemson’s most physical and most disruptive interior linemen for Clemson’s Top 10 defense down the stretch.
The group also features four scholarship players in their first or second years in the program, all of whom have drawn praise from the coaching staff for their potential. Stephiylan Green (Rome, Ga.) saw action in two games while redshirting last year, and fellow 2023 signee Vic Burley (Warner Robins, Ga.) was slated to play and avoid a redshirt until a knee injury suffered in camp and again in September postponed his Clemson debut to 2024. Clemson added two tackles in its 2024 recruiting class as well: Champ Thompson (Gainesville, Ga.) and Hevin Brown-Shuler (Columbia, S.C.). Thompson arrived during bowl practice as a midyear enrollee and has garnered comparisons to Davis from Eason for his mental approach to the game. Brown-Shuler is slated to arrive in the summer.
DEFENSIVE ENDS
In December, Chris Rumph returned to Clemson as its defensive ends coach, bringing more than 25 years of coaching experience, including the last four years at the NFL level and 17 years of Division I experience from 2003-19 with some of the biggest name brands in college football. Before coaching edge rushers at Alabama, Texas, Florida and Tennessee and with the Houston Texans, Chicago Bears and Minnesota Vikings, Rumph coached Clemson’s defensive ends from 2006-10 and oversaw the development of All-Americans Gaines Adams and Da’Quan Bowers.
Rumph inherits sophomore T.J. Parker (Phenix City, Ala.), who was one of three Freshman All-Americans on Clemson’s 2023 defense. Parker recorded 41 tackles (12.5 for loss), 5.5 sacks, two pass breakups and a fumble recovery in 13 games with three starts, and his 12.5 tackles for loss were a school record for a true freshman, breaking the previous mark of 12.0 by Myles Murphy in 2020. His 12.5 tackles for loss also tied Miami’s Rueben Bain Jr. for the most in the nation by a freshman in 2023.
Parker played 457 defensive snaps in 2023. The rest of Clemson’s returning defensive ends corps enters 2024 with 397 combined career defensive snaps. The group that will have ample opportunity for expanded impact following the departures of sixth-year seniors Xavier Thomas and Justin Mascoll.
By snap count, the most-veteran member of the group is redshirt sophomore Cade Denhoff (Plant City, Fla.). Denhoff recorded 15 tackles in 170 snaps in 2023, including a season-high three tackles in 10 snaps in the Gator Bowl. Redshirt junior Zaire Patterson (Winston-Salem, N.C.) is the group’s longest-tenured member.
Clemson has high hopes for the young duo of sophomore A.J. Hoffler (Stuart, Fla.) and redshirt sophomore Jahiem Lawson (Central, S.C.). Hoffler played seven games in his debut season at Clemson in 2023. Lawson, the younger brother of former Clemson All-American Shaq Lawson, is entering his third season at Clemson after serving primarily in a spot pass-rushing role in four games a year ago.
The defensive ends group is also home to a couple of intriguing wild cards. Dabo Swinney has often praised the development of redshirt junior Armon Mason (Richmond Hill, Ga.), a former walk-on who was poised for a significant role in 2023 until he suffered a season-ending injury amid an impressive fall camp. Additionally, Clemson cross-trained redshirt sophomore Caden Story (Lanett, Ala.), who spent his first two seasons at Clemson at defensive tackle. Story played in 10 games in 2023 and could offer the Tigers a stout edge presence in 2024.
Clemson added two defensive ends in its 2024 recruiting class: Adam Kissayi (Palm Bay, Fla.) and Darien Mayo (York, Pa.). If Clemson was looking for length in that class, it accomplished its mission. Kissayi stands 6-8, while Mayo has been measured at 6-7.
LINEBACKERS
In his first two full seasons as Defensive Coordinator and Linebackers Coach, Wes Goodwin guided Jeremiah Trotter Jr. to All-America selections in both 2022 and 2023, making Trotter the first Clemson linebacker to earn multiple All-America honors since Keith Adams in 1999 and 2000. After two highly productive seasons as a starter, Trotter elected to move on and follow in the NFL lineage of his four-time Pro Bowl father, Jeremiah Sr.
Despite Trotter departing for the next level, Clemson’s defense received a huge jolt in early January when All-ACC linebacker Barrett Carter (Suwanee, Ga.) announced his intention to return for his senior year. The versatile linebacker finished 2023 on a high note, earning selection to the AP All-Bowl Team for a performance in which his three pass breakups, an interception and a fumble recovery jumpstarted Clemson’s comeback victory. He recorded a takeaway on consecutive Kentucky plays from scrimmage amid Clemson’s four fourth-quarter takeaways in that contest. Carter enters the 2024 season as the only active player in the nation to have recorded 19 or more tackles for loss, 10+ passes defensed, multiple forced fumbles and multiple interceptions over the last two seasons.
Now-junior Wade Woodaz (Tampa, Fla.) appeared in all 13 games for Clemson with five starts in 2023, collecting 31 tackles (6.0 for loss), 4.0 sacks, two interceptions (returned a combined 94 yards with one touchdown) and a fumble recovery in his second season with the program. Fellow Tampa native Kobe McCloud made two starts last year in his redshirt freshman campaign, filling in for Carter in a November win against Georgia Tech and for Trotter in the Gator Bowl win against Kentucky.
Clemson returns two second-year linebackers: Jamal Anderson (Buford, Ga.) and Dee Crayton (Alpharetta, Ga.). Anderson, the son of the former Atlanta Falcons running back of the same name, was one of six Clemson freshmen to play in all 13 games a season ago. Crayton saw action in five games — four regular season contests and the Gator Bowl — while redshirting. They were joined on campus this spring by five-star midyear enrollee Sammy Brown (Commerce, Ga.), a consensus top-30 recruit nationally who earned the 2023 Butkus Award as the nation’s top high school linebacker. Brown could bear resemblance to another hard-hitting Georgia-native linebacker — two-time All-ACC honoree James Skalski — after Brown elected to eschew single-digit jersey options in favor of donning No. 47.
The balance of Clemson’s scholarship depth is slated to arrive over the summer. The additions will include C.J. Kubah-Taylor (Frederick, Md.), a high school teammate of fellow 2024 signee Darien Mayo at Maryland’s Good Counsel High Scchool, as well as Drew Woodaz (Wesley Chapel, Fla.), who will play alongside his brother Wade once again.
CORNERBACKS
Assistant Head Coach and Cornerbacks Coach Mike Reed produced his 10th different All-ACC cornerback in 11 seasons at Clemson in 2023, helping morph Nate Wiggins from a rangy and speedy prospect into a projected first-round NFL draft pick in the upcoming 2024 NFL Draft. The departure of Wiggins and super senior Sheridan Jones leaves behind a younger unit in 2024 but one that showed immense promise in helping turn Clemson’s 2023 season around down the stretch.
All of the sudden, the “old veteran” in the room is junior Jeadyn Lukus (Mauldin, S.C.), who has appeared in 18 games with four starts over his first two seasons while battling various injuries. Lukus’ injuries late in the 2023 created opportunity for Shelton Lewis (Stockbridge, Ga.) and Avieon Terrell (Atlanta, Ga.), and the dynamic duo delivered in their true freshman seasons. Lewis enters his sophomore season after notching seven pass breakups and two interceptions — including a 46-yard pick-six — in 13 games with two starts a year ago. Terrell continued in the family lineage established at Clemson by his brother A.J. by adding six pass breakups and an interception of his own in 13 games with five starts. According to PFF, the duo was targeted in coverage a combined 53 times in 2023, surrendering only 20 receptions, nine first downs and no touchdowns.
Redshirt sophomore Myles Oliver (Villa Rica, Ga.) enters the spring hoping a clean bill of health will allow him to showcase his abilities after knee and shoulder injuries cost him all but two game appearances in his first two seasons on campus. Branden Strozier (Lovejoy, Ga.) returns in 2024 as well after playing two early games during his redshirt campaign last year.
Clemson added three scholarship signees at cornerback in its 2024 recruiting class. While Ashton Hampton (Tallahassee, Fla.), the son of University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff Head Coach Alonzo Hampton, is expected to arrive in the summer, the other two members of the trio — Tavoy Feagin (Tampa, Fla.) and Corian Gipson (Fort Worth, Texas) — will have an opportunity to impress this spring. Feagin got a little bit of a head start by participating in bowl practices in a limited capacity in Jacksonville, but Gipson carries the pedigree of being a national top-100 recruit and another product of Clemson’s recent recruiting success in Texas.
SAFETIES
In the last five years of his now eight-year on-field tenure as Clemson’s safeties coach since 2017, Mickey Conn has produced multiple All-Americans and multiple Freshman All-Americans, deftly handling rotations and development in helping Clemson rank third in the nation in both scoring defense and total defense in that span. This season he will once again attempt to balance a unit that includes both a wealth of experience among its veterans and at least precocious talent coming off one of the most productive freshman campaigns in school history.
Clemson’s 2024 safety corps lost only one letterman from 2023 in 60-game veteran Jalyn Phillips, a 60-game veteran who missed most of November last season with an injury. The veteran voice in the room belongs to super senior R.J. Mickens (Southlake, Texas), an NFL legacy who recorded 144 tackles (7.5 for loss), five interceptions, eight pass breakups and a fumble recovery in 47 career games with 17 starts in his first four seasons. Behind Mickens, the unit’s next most-tenured member is Tyler Venables (Clemson, S.C.). Venables, the son of former Clemson coordinator and current Oklahoma coach Brent Venables, served as a valuable de-facto student coach for much of 2023 while rehabbing from injury and is a veteran of 36 career games with two starts.
Freshman All-American Khalil Barnes (Athens, Ga.) returns in 2024 following one of the most impressive debut seasons by any Clemson defensive back in school history a year ago. The versatile defensive back was credited with 41 tackles (5.0 for loss), six pass breakups, a team-high three interceptions, three forced fumbles, a sack and a fumble recovery (which he returned 42 yards for a touchdown) in 499 snaps over 13 games (seven starts), becoming one of three players in the country (and the only freshman) with at least three interceptions, three or more forced fumbles and one sack in 2023.
Barnes’ production stands out amid a deep group of talented youth at the position. Kylon Griffin (Montgomery, Ala.) recorded picks in back-to-back games as a redshirt freshman last season. Rob Billings (Marietta, Ga.) and Kylen Webb (Tampa, Fla.) both redshirted in making a combined eight game appearances in 2023.
Sherrod Covil Jr. (Chesapeake, Va.) was beginning to take hold of an expanded defensive role in 2023 until a torn ACL ended his season in late October. He and the other safeties welcomed three midyear enrollees in January: Noah Dixon (LaGrange, Ga.), Ricardo Jones (Warner Robins, Ga.) and Joe Wilkinson (Rome, Ga.).
