Before Clemson kicked off camp on Thursday afternoon, head coach Dabo Swinney talked about adding Hunter Helms to the roster as a player-coach for the 2025 season.

Helms was going to be a student coach for Clemson this year, but will now dress out for games this season and serve in an emergency quarterback capacity, much like Paul Tyson did last year.

An original Clemson walk-on turned scholarship player, Helms spent four years as a Tiger from 2020-23, appearing in nine games with 218 passing yards and two touchdowns.

Following the 2023 season, Helms transferred to Rhode Island, where he helped the Rams win a CAA Championship with a 61 percent completion percentage, 1,270 passing yards and five touchdowns with nine interceptions.

“He just wants to coach,” Swinney said of Helms on Thursday. “When he left to go play last year, he told me that. I said, ‘When you get done, let me know.’ He was coming back as an intern. Honestly I didn’t even know he had another year of eligibility. So, why not have him on the roster, right.

“He is coaching. He is doing what Paul Tyson did. He is in staff meetings. He is in all the coaching mode, but we will keep him lathered up, too. He is a pretty experienced kid who has played some football and really doesn’t need a lot of reps. He can go and execute at a high level for you if you had to have him. We really love our quarterback room, but it was just kind of one of those things, you would kick yourself if you didn’t.”

Helms now joins a 2025 Clemson roster that features starting quarterback Cade Klubnik, along with backup QBs, redshirt sophomore Christopher Vizzina, redshirt junior Trent Pearman and true freshman Chris Denson.

The Tigers are in much better shape at the quarterback position than they were during their national championship season back in 2018, as Swinney pointed out.

“I have been there,” Swinney said. “At the national championship in ’18 — I love to tell everybody and remind everybody — we had Trevor Lawrence, Chase Brice, and our third-team quarterback was Hunter Renfrow and my fourth-team [QB] was Will Spiers, the punter. That was our roster, so that is where we were.

“In fact, that year back in the Syracuse game when Trevor got knocked out — that week, I had moved Hunter to the quarterback room. I will never forget Hunter coming up to me when Trevor got knocked out. He came up and said, ‘Does this mean I am the backup now?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I just hope you don’t have to throw it to yourself,’” Swinney recalled, smiling.