By Will Vandervort.

By Will Vandervort

CLEMSON — The last three days have been sort of a whirlwind for reserve Clemson linebacker Spencer Shuey.

Prior to last Saturday’s win over Georgia Tech the Tigers middle linebacker was considered just a regular guy on the Clemson football team. He did not have the fan fair that some of his teammates have, teammates like Tajh Boyd, Andre Ellington, DeAndre Hopkins, Sammy Watkins and Travis Blanks. No, Shuey is just your average guy who goes to work and does what is asked and does it well.

But in the big-time world of college football, all it takes is one play on a stage like last Saturday to become a folk hero. That play came with 10:19 left in the fourth quarter against the hated Yellow Jackets.

With Clemson nursing a seven-point lead and the Yellow Jackets backed up to their own two-yard line, Shuey diagnosed a play that was set to go left with an option pitch to tailback Orwin Smith. Shuey immediately ran to the spot where he knew Smith was going and tackled the Georgia Tech ball carrier in the end zone for a safety that turned the course of the game and sent the 81,000 fans in attendance into a frenzy.

The next day when Shuey logged on to Facebook, he discovered his efforts did not go unnoticed.

“I have got a good bit of attention,” he said. “I have a lot of knew friend request on Facebook and that sort of thing. I’m hearing from a lot of old friends from back home and from high school. It has been real cool.”

The safety was Shuey’s second tackle for loss this year, and added to his 24 tackles overall. Since the game he has went back and watched the play a couple of times, a replay on Sunday afternoon on ESPNU and then after his sister recorded the game and sent it to him.

When he goes back and watches it, Shuey looks at it proudly because it proves  his hard work in practice and watching game film is paying off on Saturday afternoons.

“It definitely helps my confidence,” he said. “It shows that I’m able to go out there and make that play when I’m called upon and know that I have no reason to doubt myself at all.”

The 6-foot-3, 230-pound junior says he prepares every week as if he is going to be the starter at middle linebacker.

“I’m always ready either way,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking I was going to play a lot. I wasn’t thinking that I would not play at all. But I’m prepared as if I play every play.”

And because he was prepared, he recognized what is being classified as the biggest safety at Clemson since the one former safety Gene Beasley recorded 25 years ago in the same part of the same end zone in what set up David Treadwell’s 21-yard field goal with two seconds left to beat Georgia, 21-20.

“They run a lot of different things out of that formation,” Shuey said. “I got my read right away, and I knew that was one of the options they would run.  I was able to get a good read and a good jump on the ball and I was able to make the play.”

It’s a play that will more than likely allow him to be a celebrity, at least at Clemson anyway, for a long time to come.