Though Christian Wilkins reported to fall camp on Monday 15 pounds lighter than he was when spring practice came to a close, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney wants to keep him on the interior of the defensive line if he can.

“He is another guy that has worked his tail off and looks amazing,” Swinney said. “He has really changed his body. He was pretty good last year, but he has taken it to a whole other level from a nutrition standpoint now that he has had another full year in the program.

“He understands his body is a great asset for him. He has put himself in position where he can play either. I think he is fine with that.”

Wilkins, who weighed in at 300 pounds on Monday, cross trained at defensive end in the spring and from what the defensive coaches said, including defensive coordinator Brent Venables, Wilkins was pretty productive when he came outside.

But that doesn’t mean that is where the Tigers want to play him, necessarily.

“We are going to play the best guys. If he is better than those two or a third guy, then we have some flexibility in there at defensive tackle and he can help us out,” Swinney said. “But, I think we will be just fine at defensive end. Christian, I think, will be inside.”

That would be good news for Clemson all the way around if Clelin Ferrell, Austin Bryant, Richard Yeargin and Chris Register are able to hold their own at defensive end.

“There is no way to answer that until we get out on the field and see how it all shakes out with the other guys, but I can tell you this. If we line up with big Clelin, Yeargin and Austin, I think we will be just fine,” Swinney said.

Thanks to guys like Dexter Lawrence, Scott Pagano and Albert Huggins the Tigers will be okay on the inside if there is any reason Wilkins has to go outside and play defensive end.

“Dexter has not played a snap, yet, but he is going to be in the mix. He proved that this spring,” Swinney said. “The biggest thing is we just have more options and we have more depth that is competitive all across the board.

“We had that at defensive tackle last year, but we did not have that at end. We had some talent, but we had two salty veteran players and just freshmen that were green and had to ripen up through the season. I think it all got better as the season went and this year is a different situation.”

For those who think the Tigers will slip on defense because they lost seven starters from last year’s top 10 unit, Swinney is not buying it.

“The competition will make us better. It will make us deeper and we will play more people this year,” he said. “We got lucky last year. We like to play a lot of people on defense and we were not able to rotate like we were used to.”