Front Porch FootballA Fair Shot
by Chris Paschal
Wren High School is – at most – a half an hour east of Death Valley, the football (and spiritual) home of the Clemson University. Wren is located in Piedmont, South Carolina, which has about as much going for it as one would assume. According to Wren High School’s Wikipedia page, notable alumni include a couple of professional athletes and the first female to attend The Citadel, Shannon Faulkner. It also includes Kelly Bryant, the one-time starting quarterback for the Clemson Tigers. Earlier in the week, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney announced that after 18 games as starting quarterback, Bryant would be benched in favor of Trevor Lawrence.
Bryant went 16-2 in those 18 games. In one of those two losses, Bryant was knocked out of the game midway through due to injury. During that 18 game stretch, Bryant found a way to handle both of Clemson’s primary rivals, Florida State and South Carolina, something that is a must for Clemson fans. On top of that, he whipped the Miami Hurricanes in the ACC title game in Charlotte, NC, which is usually the icing on the cake of a Clemson season. The key word in that last sentence is “usually”. These are not your father’s Clemson Tigers. Back in the day, all Clemson fans wanted was beat South Carolina and win the Atlantic Coast Conference. Yes, Clemson had won a national title back in 1981, but that season felt like the exception to the rule. That era of Clemson football was also full of recruiting violations and scandal that ultimately made the higher ups at Clemson decide it was time for long-time Clemson coach Danny Ford to be shown the door.
Image from Clemson Athletics.
Dabo Swinney did not see Clemson the way many others saw the job. Many saw Clemson as a program that needed to stay in its lane. Not only is Clemson located in one of the least populated states in the South, it is surrounded by college football giants. Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, and Tennessee are all just an afternoon’s drive away from Clemson. Many analysts, and even some coaches, thought the best Clemson could do was compete in the ACC at a high level. And why not think that? From 1991 to 2010, Clemson did not win a single ACC title. But Dabo saw it differently. He saw Clemson as just as good as its SEC neighbors, and he competed (and even more importantly) recruited with that vision in mind.
You hear it all the time – “Recruiting is the lifeblood of a college football program.” Clemson is a perfect example of that. Once Dabo started hauling in recruits like Sammy Watkins out of Florida and Deshaun Watson out of Georgia, it was obvious Clemson didn’t just want to win eight or nine games and hopefully make it to the ACC title game. The Tigers wanted, and thought they could win, national championships. And while Clemson was able to land commitments from some of South Carolina’s best high school football players, where they really made their dent was in Florida and Georgia. Heck, now Dabo is pulling in the top players from states like Ohio and Alabama.
But during all of this, there was a young man living in the shadow of Memorial Stadium that wanted his shot to play in front of 81,000 orange-clad fans. Sure, Kelly Bryant wasn’t a horrible prospect out of high school, but don’t for one second think Bryant was one of the blue chip studs that Dabo was accustomed to signing. Bryant was, according to 247 Sports, just a 3-star recruit out of the Upstate of South Carolina. No more, no less. According to Grace Raynor of the Charleston Post and Courier, Dabo Swinney’s “pitch was an atypical one: come to Clemson, bide your time behind Deshaun Watson, then compete for a starting role down the road.”
Image from BPC News.
Bryant signed with the Clemson Tigers. He knew that he wouldn’t see the field as a starter early in his career, because the Tigers had in Watson one of the greatest college football quarterbacks of all time. But Bryant bought into Clemson and its culture. That culture is summed up by two words – All In. You hear it all the time out of Dabo Swinney’s mouth. Clemson fans love it. Clemson players love it. It’s a good mantra to have. Bryant was “all in” with Clemson football. In a recent article in the Greenville (S.C.) News, Bryant said that he told Dabo, “I’ve done everything y’all have asked me to do, plus more.” That sounds pretty “all in” to me.
Many have pointed a few hundred miles to the west towards Tuscaloosa, Alabama as a similar quarterback situation. In many ways they are similar. But in some key ways they’re not. Jalen Hurts was a true freshman when he started. He beat out some upperclassman Tide players that had waited their turn to lead the Crimson Tide to another national title. Hurts did not have to wait. Bryant did. Further, Hurts has not graduated or obtained his degree from Alabama yet. (He is close, though). Bryant does have his degree. Bryant went on to say in that same Greenville News interview, “I’ve been with this senior class for four years. Seeing how much we built and poured into this program, it’s tough to walk away from it.”
In many ways, Bryant’s situation reminds me more of Eli Manning’s in 2017, than it does of Jalen Hurts. Eli Manning started 210 straight games for the New York Giants. During his time in New York, Manning fought through injury to bring honor to the Giants. He won two Super Bowls and led the Giants to a lot of wins. In 2017, however, the Giants had fallen to a 2-9 record. After starting 210 straight games for an organization that preached loyalty, Manning was benched for younger players. Steve Serby later wrote for the New York Post, “there is blood on (management’s) hands. They are the ones who deserve to go. Not Eli Manning. They quit on the one Giant who would never have quit on them. Eli Manning should never be anybody’s scapegoat.”
Image from Getty Images.
Think about this … in a city as brutal as New York, in a league that is as brutal as the NFL, in a paper as brutal as the New York Post, people were still outraged at the benching of a guy that did everything he was asked to do, plus more.
I hate to break it to Clemson, South Carolina, but it is not New York, and Clemson football is not New York Giants football. If the Giants’ ownership and coaches could be ripped a new one over the benching of a hardworking quarterback during a LOSING season, shouldn’t the Clemson Tigers in the midst of the greatest run in school history?
Many would argue Clemson should be ridiculed. After all, this isn’t the NFL – it’s small town college football. But those critiques miss the key point – Clemson football is everything to its fans. Don’t believe it? Go to a game. It’s one of the more frenzied crowds of people you will ever meet. Clemson football may not have the brand recognition as Ohio State or Southern Cal, but their fans care just as much. They were given a taste of what winning a championship tastes like. They know what it feels like to be relevant. And they don’t want to give it up. South Carolina fans, don’t act like you wouldn’t do the same to Jake Bentley if behind him was the next great legend.
But at the same time there is the human aspect of this. A kid from small town South Carolina waited his turn, put in the effort, won the big-time games, beat the rivals, won the ACC, and lost it all to the 5-star kid from out of state with the flowing hair and the rocket arm. Bryant told the Greenville News that he never was a distraction and that he never was in trouble. Isn’t that the kind of kid Dabo wants leading his team? “It was kind of a slap in the face,” Bryant said.
Image from Clemson Athletics.
