By Will Vandervort.

Tajh Boyd set 52 school records during his four-year playing career at Clemson, breaking all of the records set by Charlie Whitehurst who just began his ninth season in the NFL. Before Whitehurst there was a guy named Woodrow Dantzler, who became the first quarterback in NCAA history to rush for 1,000 and throw for 2,000 yards in the same season.

Before Dantzler there was DeChane Cameron and Rodney Williams, two of the greatest winners Clemson has ever seen, and of course there was Homer Jordan, the only quarterback in Clemson history to lead the Tigers to a national championship.

But before Jordan and all those others, there was a guy by the name of Steve Fuller. He wore the No. 4 jersey. People at Clemson have said there was something different about him. He is credited as the one guy who changed the program for the better.

He was calm, cool and collected. He was a guy that was not very boastful despite being one of the more sought after and coveted quarterbacks in the country when he came out of Spartanburg High School in 1975.

Fuller could have gone to any school in the country. All the big-time programs wanted him, but he wanted to come to little ole Clemson because he wanted to help bring the program back to the national prominence it once had under Frank Howard in the late 1940s and 1950s.

And that’s what he did.

He guided the Tigers to a berth in the Gator Bowl in 1977 – it’s first bowl appearance in 18 years at the time and then again in 1978. The 1978 team also won the program its first ACC Championship in 11 years and finished the year 11-1 and ranked No. 6 in the country.

Fuller himself earned back-to-back ACC Player of the Year Honors, finished No. 6 in the Heisman Trophy race and was a first-round draft pick by the Kansas City Chiefs that following spring.

Since those years in the late 1970s, every quarterback that has come to Clemson has had to live up to the expectations set by Fuller. That’s why his jersey was retired—one of only three in Clemson history—and why his name is etched into the Ring of Honor around Memorial Stadium.

Fuller was a special quarterback that comes around maybe once every 40 or 50 years. Well, maybe someone else has finally come along that is of the same mold.

No quarterback since Fuller has come to Clemson as coveted as Deshaun Watson. A five-star prospect out of Gainesville, Ga., Watson was rated as the No. 1 dual-threat quarterback in the country by ESPN. The four-letter network also said he has the potential to be the most influential quarterback in the country over the next three years.

“He doesn’t separate himself like that. He doesn’t really think about all that stuff because that is the past,” fellow freshman and Clemson wide receiver Artavis Scott said. “You are on a new stage and all that stuff does not really matter. That’s a great accomplishment back in high school so we have to prove ourselves all over again.”

Also, like Fuller, Watson wears the No. 4 jersey after Fuller allowed the number to come out of retirement especially for him. And, like Fuller, he isn’t the boastful type. Watson is more of the quiet and reserve kind of guy.

“That is very true. He doesn’t do all that talking and stuff,” Scott said. “He really does not talk and say he is this or that. He goes as it comes to him, then he approaches it. He has never been the type that says, “Oh, I’m this or I’m that.’ He just goes with the flow.”

When he enrolled at Clemson in January, Watson just went to work. Weighing 180 pounds, the 6-foot-3 freshman got his weight up 204 pounds by the end of summer as he worked hard in the weight room and watched what he put in his body.

“I just came in and got myself prepared for this moment,” he said.

That moment came in the first game against Georgia. With a national television audience watching and 93,000 Georgia fans screaming at him, Watson stepped into his first college football game and engineered a six-play, 78-yard drive he capped with a 30-yard strike to Charone Peake for his first career touchdown pass.

His reaction? He went over to the sideline like he had done that a thousand times before.

“Deshaun is always the same person. He never changes anything,” Scott said. “That is what is so great about him. He is always calm and has the same emotion all the time.

“He is just laughing all the time and is so smooth and relaxed. I would have thought by us just playing it might change him, but he has not changed at all.”

Even in the midst of what some consider a quarterback controversy between him and senior Cole Stoudt, Watson’s demeanor has not changed. He doesn’t worry about the outside pressures or what people are saying about him starting over Stoudt or not.

Instead, he is just being a good teammate and is doing what the coaches are asking him to do instead of trying to dictate what he wants them to do.

That’s why no one saw Watson demand more playing time in last week’s win over S.C. State despite completing 8 of 9 passes for 154 yards and three touchdowns, while leading Clemson to four touchdowns in the four possessions he was on the field.

“Deshaun is Deshaun. He does what he does. I mean that is what he does,” said Scott, who caught one of Watson’s three touchdowns. “I don’t have to push him to do anything. He knows what he has in front of him and he just goes and gets it just like all of us.”

Just like Steve Fuller did.