By Will Vandervort.

For those who might think Clemson should limit Deshaun Watson running the football when he returns from ACL surgery later this year, head coach Dabo Swinney has a message about that.

“No. We run the zone-read. That’s what we do,” he said with a chuckle and a sense of disbelief that thought is even out there. “That’s why he came here. You don’t play the game in fear.”

Swinney, as reminded the media who gathered in the WestZone on Friday to preview spring practice, which begins on Monday, that Watson’s two injuries last season had little to do with what he was doing, and were freakish injuries more than anything else.

Watson, who threw for 1,466 yards and 14 touchdowns in eight games, broke the index finger in his throwing hand when it got stuck in the facemask of a Louisville player while trying to give a stiff arm. That caused him to miss three games and then on the first game back, against Georgia Tech, he went down without even being tackled and subsequently tore his ACL in his left knee.

“He didn’t even get touched. He just planted and cut on air and tore his ACL,” Swinney said. “You can’t play (scared). Hopefully we have a complete surrounding cast (of talent) around him which makes everything better, but if you are going to be a zone-read type of offense and the quarterback is not going to be a factor than it is not going to work.”

That was Clemson’s offense last year when Watson did not play in the four games he missed, plus three quarters of the Georgia Tech game. Without Watson in the lineup, the Tigers stumbled offensively as defenses showed little to no respect to Cole Stoudt when it came to running the football.

With Watson as the fulltime starter, prior to the injuries, the Tigers flourished as the true freshman directed them to 50 points and 528 yards against North Carolina and 493 more yards and 41 points the next week against NC State.

Even when he wasn’t 100 percent, Watson still had the offense clicking. Playing with a torn ACL he threw for 269 yards and two touchdowns in lead the Tigers to a 35-17 victory over South Carolina. He had two 1-yard touchdowns as well, including a 10-yard scramble where he made several Gamecock defenders miss to set up his first rushing touchdown.

“That’s why recruited Deshaun. That’s why he came here, to have the opportunity to impact the game with his feet and his arm and we will certainly continue to do that,” Swinney said.

Swinney indicated what happened to Watson last year is just a part of the game more than what they ask him to do in the offense. Prior to Watson, Swinney had not had a quarterback miss a start because of an injury.

Though Kyle Parker and Tajh Boyd were hurt at times and played injured in their careers, neither one of them every missed a start.

“It was just one of those fluky years,” Swinney said. “Had he broken his finger on his left hand he would have not missed a game. But it happened to be on the right. You have years like that. We don’t play or coach in fear.

“We play to win. Whatever we have to do to give us the best chance to win, whether it is to run the quarterback fifty times, throw it fifty times or hand the ball off fifty times. Whatever we think gives us the best chance to win, that’s what we are going to do.”