By Will Vandervort.
By Will Vandervort
If there was anyone on the Clemson football team that knows what it is like to go through ups and downs, it is Corico Wright.
The former Clemson linebacker started his career in 2009 seeing limited playing time as a freshman before becoming a full-time starter as a sophomore and junior. But as young guys like Stephone Anthony, Spencer Shuey, Tony Steward and others rode up the depth chart in 2012, the one-time starter saw his playing time cut dramatically.
“You have to go through rough times to get to where you are going and that’s in life and in the game of college football,” Wright recently said. “Everything isn’t going to be pretty. It is not going to be easy.”
It wasn’t easy for Wright this year. After starting 24 games the previous two seasons, he switched in the spring from being the starting middle linebacker to the second-team weakside backer, which happened to be behind starter Tig Willard.
Wright’s playing time was cut dramatically as he went from nearly 700 snaps during his junior season to 163 this past year. His tackles went from 80 in 2011 to 30 in 2012.
“You never heard him once complain, though,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “That’s the sign of a guy who truly puts the needs of the team above his own. He is a good leader, as all these guys on this senior class are.”
Though he was delegated from starter to reserve linebacker, Wright never stopped working hard. He worked just as hard, if not harder, in the off-season as he did the previous three seasons. He came to practices, team meetings and position meetings every day with a “football focus” and he made sure his teammates did the same.
“You have to put in the work and you have to grind it out,” he said. “You may not always get the results that you want, but you have to still work. You just don’t give up.”
Wright gets his attitude from his head coach. Swinney didn’t give up on him when he was being recruited to Clemson. Though the Milledgeville, GA native was looking at other schools after then head coach Tommy Bowden was let go, Swinney never quit recruiting him. That made an impression on the young linebacker.
“He told me to just believe in him,” Wright recalled. “He said, ‘I’m begging you to trust me and to believe in me.’ When a guy humbles himself to you, being in the position that he is in, and says, ‘Believe in me.’ That kind of does something to you. I knew then this guy was built with the right stuff.
“I told myself, ‘I can play for this guy. I can win with this guy.’ Those little things like that stuck with me throughout the recruiting process. I stayed committed here and of course I ended up coming here in the end.”
Wright’s belief in Swinney helped turn the football fortunes around at Clemson as he was a part of three Atlantic Division titles teams, an ACC Championship team and back-to-back 10 win seasons. In all, the Clemson seniors won 36 games and did things that had not happened at Clemson in 20-plus years.
“Coach Swinney did a good job with us in staying the course and staying on track,” Wright said. “We did what we were supposed to do in sticking with the formula for success. We knew if we did that, everything else will take care of itself.
“We bought into what he was telling us, and look, we went (11-2) this year and 10-4 last year. We put back-to-back 10 win-seasons together. That says a lot about the coaching staff, the program and the players.
“It was not as pretty at first and it may not have been cool to come to Clemson,” he continued. “But we wanted to come here and help change it as a class, and we have done that. We can’t thank Coach Swinney enough or the guys that came before us and taught us how to act and how to do the things you need to do to help the program carry on its traditions and to make it better.”