CHARLOTTE — If Clemson is going to bounce back from the disappointing season it experienced on the field last year, the Tigers are going to have to be better defensively.

Despite the down year, defensive end Will Heldt decided pretty quickly following the season that he was coming back and wanted to be a part of helping this Clemson program head back in the right direction. Playing for a winner is actually part of the reason why he chose to transfer in to begin with.

“Clemson gave me the best opportunity to develop myself for the pros,” Heldt said during the ACC Kickoff. “I came here for the people, the coaches and the culture.”

With T.J. Parker and Cade Denhoff now off to the NFL, Heldt is one of the elder statesmen of the Tigers’ defensive line. That means he has to take on more of a leadership role as he enters his fourth collegiate season.

That is a role Heldt is embracing with open arms, and he maintains that what happened last year is being used as fuel to ensure the unit plays up to the standard in place during the coming season.

“I think stepping up into that leadership role this year is something I am excited about,” Heldt said. “Obviously, we did not play up to our standard or our expectations that we have for ourselves at Clemson last season, but I think that is why we are excited to come into this season. We’ve got a little bit of a chip on our shoulder.”

During his first season with the Tigers, Heldt surely put up the type of numbers that were expected when he signed with Clemson after spending his first two years at Purdue. He finished with 48 tackles and led the team in sacks (7.5) and tackles for loss (15.5).

However, Clemson finished with only 35 team sacks in each of the last two seasons and has not finished ranked inside the Top 20 nationally in that category since 2022, when the Tigers produced 44, good for fourth in the country.

That is the kind of disruption fans became accustomed to when the program was making all of those runs to the College Football Playoff, and it is exactly what folks will be clamoring for when the season kicks off on September 5 at LSU.

And Heldt believes this defense can get back to playing at an elite level if they can do something they weren’t able to last season. That is having all 11 guys on the same page and at all times.

“At the end of the day, it is going to be execution,” Heldt said. “All 11 guys going in the same direction. I think, at times, that is the reason it did not look the way we wanted to last season. But communication is going to be the biggest piece to that. Other than that, just going out there and making plays.”

Photo courtesy of Nell Redmond/The ACC