By Will Vandervort.

From listening to Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney, defensive coordinator Brent Venables and co-offensive coordinator Tony Elliott, it is safe to say the Clemson defense got the upper hand in Wednesday’s first scrimmage of the spring.

The offense had its moments – Wayne Gallman’s 25-yard touchdown run and a couple of breakaway runs from freshman running back C.J. Fuller—but the day belonged to defensive end Shaq Lawson and the Clemson defense.

“The tough thing about scrimmages is the coaches have to get off the field, it is going fast and the defense is getting after them,” Elliott said. “They are going against some of the best defenses in the country.

“Some of the good things are that we made some plays. It was good to see Jordan Leggett makes some plays. He is a guy that we are really, really counting on. We were able to do some things in the red zone and that is area we have to improve on from last year, but overall there are still some area where we had plays there and we did not make them. That total execution is the one thing we need to work on the most.”

From the sounds of things the defense does, too, despite having the upper hand. Venables said his units overall effort was pretty good, but they still have to do a better job when it comes to discipline and those things.

“We jumped off sides in critical situations, some give-and-take on some short yardage and gave up a couple of plays in the red zone,” he said.

The first-team defenses gave up a long run after miss-fitting a zone-run play and were called for pass interference on a third-and-long situation. But other than that, Lawson had three sacks and four tackles for loss, while Ben Boulware was all over the field from his weakside position.

“We have to eliminate some of those mistakes, and if we do we can be a pretty solid group,” Venables said.

Injury update. Freshman tight end Milan Richard injured his ankle earlier in the week and did not participate in Wednesday’s scrimmage. He suffered a severe sprain, according to Swinney, and will be out of the rest of the spring. He will not play on the Orange & White Game on April.

Richard is expected to be back shortly after the spring game. With him out, Stanton Seckinger out for the spring recovering from knee surgery and Jay Jay McCullough still suspended infinitely the Tigers are now down to two tight ends the rest of spring practice – Leggett and Cannon Smith.

Did Dabo take a shot at South Carolina? After the scrimmage, Swinney was asked about the health of quarterback Deshaun Watson and the Clemson head coach said his quarterback is about 80 percent, “He is healthier than he was when he beat South Carolina.”

Register moves. After the scrimmage, Venables said they moved Chris Register, who was playing linebacker, to defensive end. Venables said they made the move because they feel like Register will have a productive career at defensive end.