How hard is it to defend Clemson’s receivers? Look at this way, who do you stop?

Granted Mike Williams is an All-American candidate that at 6-foot-3, 225 pounds he can out jump, out muscle and run past anyway that gets in his way. So to defend him a defense may slide a safety over to help out with coverage.

Generally, that would be a good maneuver, but who is helping out on Artavis Scott? You know, the guy who has led the Tigers in catches each of the last two years and has been an All-ACC First-Team receiver. Who has him? So the defense moves the other safety over to help cover up Scott.

What about Hunter Renfrow? You know the guy that had two touchdown receptions in the national championship game? Now he is being covered by a linebacker or the defense has to bring in a nickel back to cover him, but there isn’t a safety over the top to help out because they are on Williams and Scott, and if a nickel back is on Renfrow then that means a linebacker is covering tight end Jordan Leggett. That’s not going to work.

So the defense goes to a dime package and drops eight guys into coverage. So quarterback Deshaun Watson will hand the ball off to running back Wayne Gallman or he will keep it himself and take what the defense gives him.

And to make matters worse, when the defense is tired, Dabo Swinney calls in the fresh legs of Deon Cain, Ray Ray McCloud or Trevion Thompson. Like the other three receivers, they have all proven themselves in key situations in the past. In other words, there is no drop off.

“It puts a lot of pressure on (the defense) because you never know what you are going to get. Each receiver brings a different skill set,” Thompson said. “Each one of us has a different role and a different skill set and that is kind of hard to game plan for because you don’t know what you are going to get for which play or whatnot.”

No better example of that then in last year’s South Carolina game. The Gamecocks had just cut the Clemson lead to three points in the fourth quarter, and had the Tigers in a third-and-long situation inside the USC 40-yard line. The Gamecocks covered up everyone, but Thompson found an open spot in the Gamecocks’ zone defense, where he sat down and hauled in a long-yard pass from Watson for what turned out to be the play of the game.

Clemson went on to score a few players later on a three-yard Watson touchdown to seal the victory and the clinch the Tigers’ first perfect regular season since 1981.

“A lot of teams just have one receiver where a defense can key in on that one receiver. For us, that’s not the case,” Thompson said. “We have plenty of receivers that the defense has to worry about. And it just isn’t one, two or three of us, there are six of us, and we can go two deep at every position and three-deep at some.

“It is just good for us because like Coach (Jeff) Scott preaches all the time. Defensive backs maybe getting tired and we have fresh legs. We just go out there and roll.”

Thompson has rolled himself right into playing time. After earning some action late as a redshirt freshman, he carried that momentum and confidence into the off-season where he worked himself into what should be a regular role this year.

“It feels great to know that they are counting on me. And to know I have to go out there and know what I’m doing. When it is critical, when they call on me, I can make that play,” he said.

Thompson said the biggest key for him and any wide receiver for that matter is to be patient.

“A lot of people come in and they want to be that guy who comes in and plays right away. Unfortunately, that is not how it works,” the sophomore said. “I have just worked on my craft and I just got better as a player. I want to be that person who strives to be perfect in everything that I do.”