By Will Vandervort.

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said he saw enough of Deshaun Watson in the spring to know one thing – the freshman can help the Tigers this coming football season.

Swinney told the media that gathered at the Grandover Resort in Greensboro, N.C. on Monday for the ACC’s Annual Football Kickoff that Watson was going to play this season regardless of what the situation was at quarterback coming out of the spring.

As it turns out, senior Cole Stoudt will be Clemson’s starter when the season begins on Aug. 30 at Georgia, but Clemson fans can expect a healthy dose of the Gainesville, Ga., product as well.

“I think it is great that we have him,” Swinney said about Watson.  “I think it is a great situation. He will continue to bring that sense of urgency to Cole, not that Cole does not already have it, but he knows he has to perform well as a starter.”

Swinney says Watson is not the kind of guy to just sit back and watch someone else play. And why would he? Watson, who enrolled in January, was rated as the No. 3 player in the nation by some recruiting experts and is the No. 1 rated dual-threat quarterback coming out of high school by ESPN.

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The four-letter network said last week that he most likely will be the biggest star in college football in the next three years. As for now, he will be the Tigers’ No. 2 quarterback and that has him working hard.

“Deshaun is not going to sit back and say, ‘I’m second team for a year.’ He wants to come out and compete hard every day,” Swinney said. “When you have healthy competition like that, it makes everybody better.”

Watson’s performance in the spring definitely made Stoudt better. The true freshman was getting all kinds of raves from former players and those that were able to watch spring drills. It’s no doubt, Watson’s performance made Stoudt practice even harder.

“It’s competition that I have to compete with,” the senior said. “I have to perform the best I can. At the time I did not have any control on who was going to be the starter. It is all in the coaches’ hands and I knew that. The only way that I could convince them to make me a starter was to go out and perform the best that I possibly can. That’s what I did.”

Now as he gets ready to lead the Tigers to Athens for the season-opener, Stoudt says he has no pressure and that he doesn’t mind having a player like Watson pressing him for the job.

“I don’t really focus on the pressure,” he said. “I just go out there and play and do the best that I possibly can. My job is to get the team in the end zone and do that anyway that I can. I’m a team player and I always have been. I just try to find a way to get the team in the end zone and be the best I possibly can be for the team.”

And that is with or without sharing playing time with Deshaun Watson.