Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables confirmed there are at least four true freshmen that will play in the second-ranked Tigers’ season-opener at Auburn on Sept. 3.

Of course the four he named comes as no surprise.

Cornerback Trayvon Mullen, defensive back K’Von Wallace, defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence and linebacker Tre Lamar are the four freshmen Venables says will play when Clemson takes to the field on the Plains in Auburn, Alabama.

With Marcus Edmond missing all of camp while nursing a hamstring injury, Mullen has been pushing sophomore Mark Fields for the top spot at the cornerback position opposite Cordrea Tankersley. He even started the Tigers’ second scrimmage last Saturday.

Lawrence (6-5, 343) was the star of the spring and had a good camp. With Carlos Watkins sitting out Thursday’s scrimmage with a wrist injury and Christian Wilkins playing mostly at defensive end with Austin Bryant out for the next three weeks with a fracture foot, Lawrence, along with redshirt junior Scott Pagano, played with the first-team defense in Thursday’s scrimmage.

Of course Lamar, a five-star linebacker out of Roswell, Georgia, has been the most consistent of all the freshmen and has been pushing Kendall Joseph all summer to be the starter at middle linebacker.

“He is a guy that I trust,” Venables said.

However, Wallace has been the biggest surprise of the four. With Edmond out, the freshman played some at cornerback as well as playing the safety and the nickel positions. Where he might play for the Tigers against Auburn, Venables isn’t sure of that, but he knows he will help out somewhere.

“I don’t have an answer for that, but I think it shows his versatility. He can play and he can do a lot of things,” the Clemson defensive coordinator said. “We have looked at him in a bunch of different positions and he has really done pretty well. When you consider he lacks the experience, knowledge, film study and repetitions, he is a good football player.

“I think he has a good future if he keeps his head on straight and keeps grinding. His barometer is heading in the right direction.”

Venables confirmed they have not made a decision on defensive end Xavier Kelly. His moped accident on Wednesday night, which Venables said nearly killed him, will not weigh into their decision to redshirt the 6-foot-5, 260-pound freshman.

Kelly will miss about a week after suffering some minor injuries, including one to the head. The Wichita, Kanas native started off preseason camp well, but faded a bit down the stretch as more and more of the defense was thrown on top of him.

Venables says they could handle Kelly’s situation much like they did Clelin Ferrell last year. After injuring his hand, the Tigers did not put a redshirt on Ferrell officially until about the sixth week of the season as they waited to make sure the depth at the defensive end position would hold up.

Ferrell, a redshirt freshman, is now listed as one of the starting defensive ends for the Auburn game.

“We are planning on playing (Kelly) and having him ready, maybe kind of Clelin like. See how guys develop and what we might need,” Venables said. “We are not ready to say he is a redshirt guy. And we still may not. I think he will be practicing next week.

“(A decision) probably could be three weeks into the season. We know definitively that way. If you know definitively beforehand then you make it. No need to drag it on if you definitely know. Some of these decisions will be on watching today’s video and maybe get a guy to where he still has that question mark on him or you know, play him or again, ‘He is not quite ready.’ Again, sometimes is not indicative to how well he is doing, it’s the players he is competing against and do you want to waste a year just to run him down on kickoff. There is a lot of tough (decisions) … it is hard. It is very hard.”

One of those hard decisions will be about linebacker James Skalski. Venables has bragged about Skalski throughout the preseason, but the Tigers are loaded with talent at linebacker, and the question comes, how much will he be able to play this year if they decide to burn his redshirt?

“He knows where that football is. He is a missile getting there,” Venables said about the Sharpsburg, Georgia native. “He plays longer than Ben. I compare him to Ben a lot … short white dude. He does not look like much, but I think he is a ball-playing dude, both of them.”

Skalski is listed at 6-foot-2, 225 pounds.

“I love Ben Boulware so I think that is a great compliment to Jamie,” Venables said. “Jamie is super athletic and has excellent top-end speed that he plays with, and again, he just got here. We try to make it simple for him, but it is not easy to learn all that we do and he doesn’t seem to be overwhelmed for a guy that just got here in late June. I have been really pleased with him.”

Skalski isn’t the only linebacker that is a question mark. It appears the coaches are still debating if Shaq Smith, who enrolled in January with Lamar, can help the defense this year.

“We will see if he is ready,” Venables said.

As they will with all the freshmen.