CLEMSON – When Jerome Carter III visited Clemson during his brief stint in the transfer portal last winter, his father and Tigers’ head coach Dabo Swinney took a trip down memory lane.
In Swinney’s first year as Clemson’s wide receivers coach back in 2003, the Tigers pulled off a massive win over Bobby Bowden’s third-ranked Florida State Seminoles, a victory that ignited a late-season splash in ACC standings.
It was the first time that Tommy Bowden, son of Bobby and the head coach of the Tigers, defeated his father and added a positive notch to the Clemson side of the rivalry.
Though the victory resulted mostly in Clemson headlines, one of the best moments for Florida State that night came when defensive back Jerome Carter II collected an interception in the first half, right out of the hands of one of Swinney’s wide receivers.
Just shy of 23 years later, Carter II and Swinney relived the moment on his son’s official visit to South Carolina’s Upstate last January.
“When him and Coach Swinney was talking, I think it was 2004 or 2005, whenever they played here,
they were winning over there at the stadium,” Carter III said in March. “And then Clemson came back and won late in the game. I remember them talking about it.”
In Clemson’s 36-24 win over the Seminoles on Saturday, Carter III got to add his own piece of lore into the historic ACC rivalry, finishing with his first interception and sack as a Tiger, and tying his father’s statistics in Doak Campbell Stadium.
“I coached against his dad,” Swinney said. “In fact that ‘03 game coached against his dad and he tied his dad’s school record. His dad had a sack and an interception in this stadium. And so for Jerome to come in here tonight and have a sack and an interception, pretty cool for that young man.”
The safety’s performance went even deeper than just matching his father’s success, however.
After his father’s stint in the NFL and playing overseas, he moved back to Lake City, Fla., and coached Jerome’s pop warner teams, putting him in at every position before he settled as a defensive back later in his career.
As Carter grew, all he wanted was to play for Florida State– to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a Seminole. He attended three unofficial visits and went to the team’s annual Junior Day back in the winter of 2023.
Still, no Florida State offer came, despite a stellar campaign at Columbia high school.
Instead, he spent the first two years of his college football career at Old Dominion University, catching six interceptions as a sophomore last season, which tied for the second-most in the nation.
One season later, in Clemson colors, he finally got the chance to show the Seminoles what they missed out on.
“It was a dream for me to come to this school,” Carter said Saturday, looking out across an empty Bobby Bowden field. “You know, I was a legacy kid, so I wanted to come and play here, but I never really got the chance. It was all in God’s plan, it’s a full circle moment for me for real.”
Carter finished with five tackles, including two tackles for loss, to rank third on the defense. He added a pass breakup in addition to the interception and locked down some of the Seminoles’ most potent offensive weapons for the majority of the win.
His dad got to watch him live, this time wearing Clemson colors, after wholeheartedly switching allegiances for his son this winter.
“I’m his son at the end of the day,” Carter said last spring. “He said, I’m his son, regardless of where I go, he’s going to come and support me. He is a Clemson Tiger now.”
And over half a year after that assertion, Carter got to see that support from his father in real time after his career night.
“I’m going to go hug him and I might cry,” Carter told media members with a smile as big as his night on the field.