Swinney on Which Freshmen WRs Will Play or Redshirt
By: Gavin Oliver August 28, 2023

During his radio call-in show Monday night, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney commented on the Tigers’ freshmen receivers and who will play or redshirt this season, and which ones are still to be decided.

Clemson signed four receivers as part of its 2023 recruiting class – Tyler Brown, Ronan Hanafin, Noble Johnson and Misun “Tink” Kelley.

“Really liked the four that we signed, and Tyler Brown for sure’s going to play,” Swinney said. “Ronan we’re going to redshirt, and then Noble and Tink, we’re going to try to hold them, we’ll see how it goes. A lot of it depends on (Troy) Stellato, who’s back now. He’s looked good the last few days. … He’s been here two years and hasn’t played (due to injuries). He’s a guy that certainly can do it, and he’s a bonus guy, because we feel really good about our core group.”

Johnson enrolled early at Clemson in January, while Kelley, Brown and Hanafin arrived on campus this summer.

Brown and Kelley are both local products, with the explosive Brown tallying 34 career touchdowns at Greenville and Kelley helping Daniel to a 36-game winning streak from 2020-22 as a dynamic two-way player. A former top-250 national prospect, Johnson averaged 17.2 yards per catch in his prep career at Rockwall (Texas), while Hanafin is a versatile athlete who contributed in a variety of ways at Massachusetts’ Buckingham Browne & Nichols School.

Swinney noted on his radio show that after a rule change, postseason games do not count toward the four-game limit for freshmen keeping their redshirt status.

“They changed the rule this year where the postseason doesn’t count,” Swinney said. “So let’s just say you go to the national championship, well, you can play seven games. The postseason does not count. So you can play four games in the season, you can play the ACC Championship, a playoff game and the national championship. You can play seven games and still be redshirted.”

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