The only people who knew who Seth Beer was at this time last year were diehard college baseball fans that followed baseball recruiting like football recruiting.

Beer would have been considered a five-star prospect in football and would have been all the rage when he enrolled for classes in January of 2016. Instead, the Suwanee, Georgia native flew under the radar for the most part with no expectations, no pressure and no fanfare from the media or the fans.

However, barley six weeks since he started college, Beer was starting in right field on opening day at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. At the time, no one knew what to expect from the freshman, especially after he went 0-for-4 in his first college game – the only game in his freshman season he did not reach base.

“Last year when I came in, there were no expectations,” Beer said. “I was not expected to do anything as a high school guy and I kind of came in and just played the game the way I always played it, and had fun.”

Beer had a lot of fun after that. He went on a 26-game hitting streak, the fourth longest in Clemson history. His 18 home runs were the most by a freshman in school history, and his .700 slugging percentage was the best mark by a Tiger since Khalil Greene (.877) in 2002.

Beer finished his freshman campaign hitting .369 with 57 runs scored, to go along with 13 doubles and 70 RBIs. He had a .535 on-base percentage, drew 62 walks and 15 times was hit by a pitch.

By the end of the year, he was not only the ACC Player of the Year, a first for a freshman, but he also won the Dick Howser Award as the nation’s best player, also a first for a freshman.

One year later, everyone knows who Seth Beer is now. When the Tigers opened preseason practice last Friday, Beer was surrounded by the media as everyone there wanted to get that one blurb or comment from the All-American. Expectations are now through the roof, and Beer understands why.

“The big key for me this year is to go out there and have that same drive and that same competitive level and still enjoy the game,” he said.

Those are words Beer’s head coach likes to hear.

“Seth just needs to be Seth,” Clemson head coach Monte Lee said. “He just needs to be himself and stay within himself and not try to do too much. I talk to Seth a lot about remembering who you are and not what you did. ‘You are a good player because of who you are. You are a good man of high character that puts the team first.’”

Beer does put his team first, whether it is taking a pitch and drawing a walk to keep an inning going or changing positions. He does it all for the team. When Lee asked Beer, who has played right field his whole baseball life, if had any issues moving to first base, the sophomore had no problems with it.

He spent all of fall practice there and adjusted well, though it does have a few challenges he did not expect.

“One thing I had to pick up on was trying to read all the different throws from all the different guys from all the different angles from different parts of the field,” Beer said. “Reading hops off a bat is tough and when (the batter) spins one at you, the hop is something you can struggle with, but the only way you are going to learn that is through repetition.”

Beer used an interesting analogy when explaining his appreciation for his new position.

“We are kind of the offensive line. That is the best way you can say it,” he said. “If they miss a block, or in our case miss a ball, it’s like, ‘Wow! Look what they did. They messed up.’ But if you catch a ball on a regular bases, you kind of go under the radar. That’s the way you have to look at it. We play a huge role, but we are not always glorified for our role.”

It hard to imagine Beer ever going unnoticed or under the radar again in his college career, but in his eyes, that’s the best way to look at it.

“At the end of the day, this is still a game. This is not a job to me,” he said. “This is something I have enjoyed and I have loved throughout my whole life and I have to keep it that way.”