As he walked over to Pickens High School head coach James Reynolds Friday night, Greenville High School head coach Greg Porter apologized.

He was not apologizing for the Red Raiders’ 52-7 win over the Blue Flame. No, instead he was apologizing for running a play when he clearly did not need to as the final seconds ticked off the clock.

Porter got so caught up in making sure everyone on his team got a chance to play, he forgot about the situation and ran a play when he could have easily had his quarterback take a knee and end the game there.

“It was my fault as a leader,” Porter said. “It’s 52-7 and I am looking at us running another play. I am not even thinking that their coach would see that as, ‘Hey man! That’s kind of disrespectful. Why would you do that do me?’ That was never in my heart. Like I told him, if that was in my heart, we would have kept the ones in.

“But I was so concerned about making sure we rotate everybody into the game, and everybody gets a play. It gave the impression that I was trying to run up the score on them. So, I had to take the blame in front of the team. I have to do better with that, that is not my style. I did not want to do that. I was thinking about our kids who practiced all week who had not gotten into the game.”

Following handshakes at midfield, Porter gathered his team around him and pointed out what had just happened. He apologized for it, using it as a teachable moment for himself, his coaches, and his players.

“We can’t do that. I can’t do that,” he said. “We have to be careful on how our program is perceived. We only get one shot. He is a new coach. He is trying to build his program. I have been on the other side. I took those whippings. I have nothing but the upmost respect for Coach Reynolds and I would hate for him to think that is who I am.”

Hearing Porter’s sincerity as he explained the situation to his players, it explains a lot about the kind of football players Clemson has gotten from Greenville High School. Currently, the Tigers have four former Red Raiders on their 2023 roster – tight end Josh Sapp, linebacker Riggs Faulkenberry, left tackle Collin Sadler and wide receiver Tyler Brown.

Clemson wide receiver Tyler Brown (6) earned ACC Wide Receiver and Rookie of the Week honors after his nine-catch, 153-yard performance at Syracuse on Sept. 30. (Bart Boatwright/The Clemson Insider)

“They are all great kids,” Porter said.

They are all taking advantage of their opportunities and doing great things at Clemson, especially Brown, who has come out of nowhere to become one of the more talked about freshmen at Clemson not named Deshaun Watson or Trevor Lawrence.

“We talk about the Eye of the Tiger all the time, that kid has got it,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “He is the epitome of it. The kid loves Clemson.”

Brown grew up a Clemson fan, and like every Clemson football fan, he dreamed about rubbing Howard’s Rock and running down the hill into Death Valley.

“It was everything and more,” said Brown, as he described his first trip down the hill prior to the Charleston Southern game earlier this year. “It was so amazing. I got chills just thinking about it. I am just taking it all in still. I am taking it day-by-day, and I am just enjoying it for sure.”

Brown is definitely enjoying himself. In the summer, he was the talk of camp and since then has proved everything that was said about him is true.

He currently is tied for the team lead with 24 catches and two touchdown receptions and his 338 yards rank second behind Beaux Collins’ 339 yards. Already twice this season he has been named ACC Rookie of the Week, while also garnering league honors as Wide Receiver of the Week following his nine-catch, 153-yard performance at Syracuse on Sept. 30.

However, there was a time when Brown was not sure he was coming to Clemson.

At one point, Brown was committed to Minnesota and Clemson had not offered him a scholarship. However, after a receiver the Tigers were after decided to go elsewhere, Brown got on wide receivers coach Tyler Grisham’s radar when he saw him while looking at another player on the Greenville team.

Grisham had remembered Brown, but he noticed Brown looked bigger and stronger from what he remembered.

After losing to Northwestern in the Upper State Finals of the Class AAA Playoff in 2021, Brown immediately went to work. He wanted to get back to that moment. He wanted that opportunity again.

“We had Christmas break, and he came back in January, and he was huge,” Porter recalled. “I said, ‘Hey man! I can tell you have been working out.’ He never stopped working out. The minute we lost that game, he kept working out.”

Brown’s parents bought him a weight set and from there he took off.

“It was like he was committed,” Porter said.

Grisham noticed Brown’s commitment, so he invited him and his family to a game last November and got him in front of Swinney, who subsequently offered him a scholarship to play at Clemson.

“I had been a Clemson fan my whole life and when they gave me the offer, it was about a week (after) I committed,” Brown said. “I wanted to commit on the spot, but I was kind of lost for words. I was just taking it all in at that point.”

It is another story all together that Brown even got to that point. Though he is just 5-foot-11, Brown also had dreams of being a professional basketball player and even enrolled at Legacy Early College to focus on basketball.

“I had the hoop dreams,” he said. “I started playing football and basketball around the same age, around six. In the seventh grade, I had the hoop dreams. I decided I was going to Legacy Early College and play basketball, but I played behind stars… I just did not have the same mindset. I like the game, but it did not feel the same as football.”

That is what brought Brown to Greenville High School. However, was he serious about being a football player?

“I really had a sit-down talk with Coach Porter and Coach Lamb,” Brown said. “I had missed the 6 a.m. workout because they were optional at the time, so they sat me down. They asked me, what did you come here for?”

Porter remembered that was the turning point for Brown. It was a teachable moment and Brown paid attention.

“I think he came to our school and thought it was optional,” Porter said. “He thought he could come to 6 a.m. workouts when he felt like it. We reminded him immediately, if that was his plan, then he needed to stay where he was at.

“We expect a lot from our kids. He was new. Once he realized how seriously we took it, that is when the transformation took place. He had a lot of raw talent and ability, but he was never a part of a program that said, ‘No. This is what we expect on and off the field.’”

Falling in place was not hard for Brown. He needed to be part of a program that had some structure and had the leadership where they push everybody for high standards.

“Tyler really embraced everything. He has the blueprint for a lot of our kids here. It doesn’t matter if they are African American or White, he has the blueprint for all of our student-athletes on what it takes to succeed on and off the field,” Porter said.

Porter never had to have the conversation with Brown again. From that point, he was the perfect student, player, and teammate a coach could ask for.

“They told me that I needed to lock in if this is really what I want. So, since then, I always had my head on straight. They really shaped my work ethic, the whole Greenville High School program.”

And that is why Greg Porter took a few minutes following Friday’s win over Pickens to apologize to his team and to offer a teachable moment.

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