By Will Vandervort.

When Clemson starts spring practice Monday afternoon on the practice fields beside the Jervey Athletic Center, all eyes will be on the quarterbacks.

The Tigers will open Dabo Swinney’s seventh spring training camp with one quarterback on the shelf, one who needs to step it up and two that are two young to know anything. Plus their position coach, Brandon Streeter, is in his first year as he tries to grasp the offense, while getting to know each of them at the same time.

“I’m excited about Brandon and watching him off to get off to a good start as far as bowl practice, but he has not coached Tucker (Israel) and he has not coached Kelly (Bryant),” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “Literally, we have fifteen days.”

The Tigers have 15 days to get Bryant and Israel up to speed so they can challenge junior Nick Schuessler for the backup position in the summer. Schuessler, who played sparingly last season, comes into the spring as the No. 2 quarterback and is expected to take a good bit of the first-team reps—at first—while Deshaun Watson continues to rehab from his off-season ACL surgery in his left knee.

“All I know is that they are both really talented young players,” Swinney said about Bryant and Israel. “They have some similarities, but a lot of differences, too. We have to get one of them or both of them ready to play.

“As you go into spring, you have to get them both ready to play. We have no idea what is going to happen between now and fall camp. You just look around the country… Ohio State played with their third-team guy and won the national championship. So we have to get all four of our guys ready to win the league for us. That’s our ultimate goal. And it starts this spring.”

It starts with Watson, who Swinney says need to continue to lead the team even if he can’t participate in any of the 15 spring practices.

“Everybody respects Deshaun,” Swinney said. “We still need him to lead. He can do that. We need that from him this spring. In that quarterback room, on the practice field, the dining hall, the locker room… that just can’t stop and we just can’t pick that back up in the summer.”

Schuessler will also be counted on from a leadership standpoint. The veteran of the group, Swinney says the coaches expect him to step up his game both on and off the field.

“His role is different, too. This time last spring it was Chad (Kelly), Cole (Stoudt), and Deshaun was just getting here. Now, Nick is a factor for us,” Swinney said. “It is a little different sense of urgency for us and hopefully he will rise up to the occasion and take advantage of the opportunities he has this spring.”

As for Kelly and Bryant, Swinney hopes they can make the same kind of progress Watson made as a true freshman after he enrolled at Clemson in January of 2014. After a slow start, Watson really came on the last half of the spring before injuring his shoulder. He carried that momentum into the summer and worked even harder to be ready. He was a different player mentally by the time fall camp started.

“Will Kelly and Tucker make that same progression? We will see,” Swinney said. “Will they work like Deshaun did? Will they respond? But they are certainly going to get a ton of opportunities. We need both those guys to rise up. That’s why we recruited them.”