Remember Allen Iverson?

Remember when the former basketball star sat in a press conference one afternoon in Philadelphia and said, “We’re talking about practice!”

Earlier this week, Clemson linebacker Ben Boulware had a similar remark when reporters asked him about his ejection from last week’s scrimmage when he got into a scuffle with one of his teammates.

Both head coach Dabo Swinney and defensive coordinator Brent Venables called the junior out and said they need him to keep his cool and make sure he keeps himself on the field.

“It’s practice,” the Anderson, S.C. native said. “He told me not to say anything about it … I need to be a better leader, but it’s practice. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s not a major story or anything, it’s just a scuffle. I don’t know. It is not that big of a deal.”

Boulware is right. It is not that big of a deal, right now. But the reason he was kicked out of the scrimmage is a big deal to Swinney and Venables, especially considering the Tigers are already down a man at weakside backer with the departure of Korie Rogers.

Clemson is also down a man in the middle, too. Redshirt freshman Kendall Joseph, who is listed as the second-team middle linebacker, is out with a knee injury. He could miss up to three weeks, and possibly the first game of the season against Wofford on Sept. 5. In other words, the Tigers cannot afford to lose their star linebacker during a game and for another because he lost his cool.

“The whole Korie thing was a surprise. I don’t think anyone saw that coming,” Boulware said. “The personal we have, I think we will be okay because of the way we work and the way we prepare for games, these scrimmages and for practice every day. I mean, we lose one guy, but I think we will be alright.”

That leaves Boulware and senior B.J. Goodson as the only experienced players at their respected positions.

“We definitely have a young linebacking corps,” Boulware said.

To help with depth and experience, the coaches moved junior defensive end Martin Aiken to weakside backer, where he plays behind Boulware and true freshman Jalen Williams.

The good news for Clemson is that Williams has been the talk of camp from the head coach, to the position coaches all the way down to the players. Everyone figures he will be in the mix to help the Tigers this season and he has a chance to be a really good player.

“Honestly, and I don’t mean for this to sound cocky, but he resembles me a little bit as a freshman,” Boulware said. “We both did not really have a clue of what we were doing (when we first came in), but he is farther along than I was as a freshman. He still has to get better mentally and knowing the game plan, but with that being said, if he isn’t good in that one area, he is going to be really good in this other area. That’s when he goes all out every play and that’s one thing you can’t teach.

“That’s why Coach Venables recruited him, he knew he had that it factor.”

But if everything is equal then what do we really know? Williams has only shown what he can do in practice. There is still the unknown of how he might do in a game. So in reality, we are just talking about practice.