CLEMSON, S.C. — Barrett Carter is only 18, but he has been following Clemson football regularly for more than a decade. Ever since his family moved from Chicago to Georgia when the now-five-star defensive back was 7, the Tigers have had Carter’s attention.
“When you’re in the Southeast, you can’t talk about the best programs in the country without bringing up Clemson,” Carter said in an interview with The Athletic earlier this month. “I started to become a Clemson fan just because of how they dominated on Saturdays.”
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Carter, the No. 32 prospect in the country and the No. 3 player in Georgia according to the 247Sports Composite, first got on Clemson’s radar as a freshman at North Gwinnett in Suwanee, Ga., when safeties coach Mickey Conn started evaluating him before he ever took a varsity snap.
Almost exactly a year ago, he committed to the Tigers. He’ll enroll on June 24, just more than a month from now, joining offensive tackle Tristan Leigh, wide receiver Troy Stellato, defensive end Zaire Patterson, offensive lineman Dietrick Pennington and quarterbacks Bubba Chandler and Will Taylor as summer enrollees.
Clemson’s 13 early enrollees naturally drew attention during spring practice, but the new batch of prospects have their own talent and potential. Carter and Leigh represent two of Clemson’s three five-star prospects in the No. 5-ranked Class of 2021, and in Carter’s case, he lends support in the secondary — the most vulnerable area of Clemson’s defense.
To prepare, he has been studying defensive coordinator Brent Venables’ playbook since February.
“When I opened it up, I thought I was opening up a dictionary,” Carter said. “It’s huge.”
Carter said Venables doesn’t refer to him as a member of a specific position group, but instead plans to use him all over the field as a “Swiss Army knife.” Recruiting services listed him as a linebacker — something coach Dabo Swinney said he and his staff laughed at — before Clemson signed him as a safety.
“He’s not a guy you can put in a box,” Swinney said on a live signing day broadcast. “He could play linebacker, but he could play either safety position.”
The Tigers pitched Carter on using him like they did former linebacker Isaiah Simmons, who happens to be Carter’s favorite Clemson player.
The Tigers signed Simmons as a safety in 2016 before he transitioned to the starting nickel/sam linebacker role ahead of the 2018 season. Simmons played more than 100 snaps each as an edge defender, inside linebacker, slot cornerback, strong safety and free safety in 2019, according to Pro Football Focus. He won Clemson’s first Butkus Award in 2019, presented to the nation’s top linebacker, before going No. 8 in the 2020 NFL Draft to the Arizona Cardinals.
Isaiah Simmons 2019 snaps at each position:
Edge – 116
Inside LB – 299
Slot CB – 262
SS – 100
FS – 132 pic.twitter.com/O0pOfsGQtvSee AlsoClemson's QB evaluation, even more injuries and new-look standings in the ACC: Tigers final thoughts— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 27, 2020
Carter, listed on his recruiting profile at 6-foot-1 and 220 pounds, is about three inches shorter and almost 20 pounds lighter than Simmons. But Clemson believes he has the same ability to move around.
“(Venables) wants me to start off at sam linebacker and also nickel,” Carter said. “He’s also going to teach me … free safety, dime, then he said eventually he’s going to work me at inside linebacker, too, in certain packages.”
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Carter said he never got the chance to talk much with Simmons, but he got to see him in the locker room when he visited Clemson for the Tigers’ 2019 game against Florida State at Death Valley.
Swinney said on the broadcast that Carter can support the run against 12 personnel (one running back and two tight ends), just as effectively as he can cover against 10 personnel (one running back and no tight ends). He finished his high school career with 162 tackles and 27 tackles for loss, including 18 sacks.
“He’s a guy that teams are going to have to scheme against. … You never know where he’s going to line up,” cornerbacks coach Mike Reed said at the signing day event. “Offenses are more spread out. They want to take you sideline to sideline and create plays (with) one-on-one matchups in space. And as a defender, you want a guy that has that ability to make plays in space. And this is a young man that definitely can do it.”
Carter said he originally was going to room with fellow freshman safety Andrew Mukuba before Mukuba enrolled early. Now he doesn’t know which teammate he’ll live with at Clemson, but he’s adamant those early visits from Conn paid off.
“I mean this in the most humble way, but they were coming to see me before I was a known recruit. That just made me become the biggest fan of Clemson,” Carter said. “Before all the other big schools were talking to me, Clemson was there.”
Stellato in the slot?
Clemson’s top four wide receivers are Justyn Ross — if he’s medically cleared next month — Joseph Ngata, E.J. Williams and Frank Ladson Jr. All four are at least 6-foot-3. None are built like prototypical slot receivers.
Troy Stellato, a four-star prospect from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who ranks the No. 174 player in the country and the No. 30 wide receiver, could help fill that role.
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“Troy reminds me a lot of his future coach, (Tyler) Grisham,” Swinney said during the signing day event. “The Clemson people, we all remember the type of player Tyler Grisham was.”
Grisham, the 33-year-old who just finished his first season as the Tigers wide receivers coach, played for Clemson from 2005-08 and finished his career with 132 receptions for 1,390 yards and eight touchdowns. He played four games with the Pittsburgh Steelers as a free agent in 2009 before serving as an NFL practice squad player through 2012.
Swinney said that Stellato (6 feet, 175 pounds) is bigger than Grisham, but can play all three wide receiver positions like his coach. With an excess of length on the outside, however — the Tigers also have 6-foot-5 Dacari Collins, 6-foot-3 Ajou Ajou and 6-foot-3 Beaux Collins — it’s reasonable to assume Stellato will best serve Clemson in the slot.
Behind Ross, if cleared, the competition at slot receiver should be open. Redshirt sophom*ore Brannon Spector and super senior Will Swinney have combined for just 47 career receptions.
“He has zero fear when the ball is in the air and not everybody can say that. He gets locked in when the ball’s in the air, and if it’s a 50-50 ball, he’s going to get it 100 percent of the time,” said Stellato’s high school coach, Matt DuBuc. “He’s gone against the very best corners in South Florida from Dade County to Broward. He won huge plays when we won the state championship.”
Stellato finished his high school career at Cardinal Gibbons with 112 career catches for 1,758 yards and 19 touchdowns in 33 games. He averaged 12.5 yards per catch in a shortened 2020 season, but 17.3 yards per catch as a junior and 16 yards per catch as a sophom*ore. His recruitment came down to Clemson versus Ohio State.
Swinney, at the signing day event, raved about Stellato’s ability to stretch the field, his speed, breakpoints and short-area separation skills. Grisham also pointed out his speed, with DuBuc estimating Stellato could run a 4.4-second 40-yard dash. Stellato impressed him as early as middle school.
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“When I met his mom for the first time — and we always laugh about it — when he was in the seventh grade I said, ‘Hey, if you come to Gibbons, I’ll make sure that you never have to pay for college,’” DuBuc said. “She kind of rolled her eyes and laughed.
“As his senior year was coming in, we talked and I go, ‘You remember that conversation?’ And she just started laughing. Paying for college is one thing. Going to the No. 1 school in the nation, we never really got that far, but it was funny. … Sometimes, you just know. He was a no-miss guy.”
Patterson’s athleticism
Swinney has long pushed back on the idea of youth athletes specializing and considers it an added bonus when his recruits play more than just football. Patterson, who played three years of high school basketball at Winston-Salem Prep in North Carolina, fits that bill.
“That’s one of the things that I track every year in the draft. How many of those guys that are going in those upper rounds played multiple sports?” Swinney said on the signing day broadcast. “It’s best when you are involved in multiple things and you have different types of training, different team dynamics, different competitive dynamics. … And especially big guys. I love it when big guys run track, play basketball, whatever it may be.”
Swinney said Patterson (6-6, 230 pounds) weighed about 205 pounds before his high school football coaches started developing him as a defensive end. For his career, he totaled 181 tackles, 43 tackles for loss including 25 sacks, three interceptions and 10 caused fumbles in two seasons.
In one game alone, he had a career-high 20 tackles, six tackles for loss, four sacks and three caused fumbles against Bishop McGuinness of Kernersville, N.C. The four-star committed to Clemson over a slew of other offers, including Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Notre Dame, North Carolina and South Carolina.
“He grew up a huge Clemson fan,” said defensive ends coach Lemanski Hall on the broadcast. “That was very impressive when we saw him.”
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Pennington on the OL
Leigh is Clemson’s headliner, in the recruiting class and on the offensive line. The Virginia native is the highest-ranked offensive line recruit in program history as the nation’s No. 13 prospect. But Pennington, his fellow offensive lineman, has racked up a few accolades himself.
The Memphis, Tenn., native earned Mr. Football honors in Tennessee for D2-AA after being the runner up in 2019. He visited Swinney’s Clemson camp his sophom*ore year, where Swinney first identified his potential on offense.
“He was working in the D-line, and I remember watching him and I’m going, ‘Man, what a great looking kid he is,’ and then I watched him in our OL-DL pass rush,” Swinney said on the signing day broadcast. “He was a good D-lineman, but when you’ve coached long enough, every now and then you come across (someone) and you say, ‘Man that guy, if he would ever buy into playing OL, he could be something special.’”
Swinney said Clemson talked with Pennington, who wanted to be a defensive lineman and played both ways, about making the switch. He added that he thought Miguel Chavis, an analyst at Clemson who played for the Tigers from 2007-10, would still be playing football had he switched from defensive end to left tackle.
“He knows that now, but you’re kind of all meatheated when you’re 18 to 21,” Swinney said. “(Pennington) realized, ‘You know what? I’ve got a really bright future as an offensive lineman.’”
Pennington (6-5, 326) is now ranked the No. 13 offensive guard and the No. 210 player in the nation. In addition to playing football, he threw the shot put and discus and also played basketball.
“He doesn’t say a word. It’s easy to recruit. You do all the talking,” offensive line coach Robbie Caldwell said on the signing day broadcast. “Gonna take him a little while, but he is a very special young man.”
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Quarterback updates
Chandler and Taylor continue to impress MLB scouts. Chandler, whose high school baseball season recently ended, is the No. 22 prospect, per MLB.com. Taylor, who hit a two-run homer for Dutch Fork High School on Monday night, is the No. 26 prospect.
Taylor now with 7 HRs and 30 RBI on season. @ForkBaseball has hit 17 HRs as a team with its four tonight https://t.co/HtfEG2svRi
— Lou Bezjak (@LouatTheState) May 18, 2021
In 2020, the assigned value for the No. 22 pick came in at more than $3 million, with the No. 26 pick at $2.65 million.
Chandler and Taylor could enroll at Clemson next month before the MLB Draft begins July 11, but would have a quick decision to make. If the Tigers decide to use the transfer portal to boost quarterback depth, all athletes who intend to transfer and play immediately in 2021 need to declare by July 1.
(Photo of Barrett Carter: Courtesy of Rusty Mansell / 247Sports)
