By Will Vandervort.
If there is one thing we know when looking at the interior line on 16th-ranked Clemson’s defense it is this – Grady Jarrett will fill one of the starting spots. As for who gets the second one – no one knows, including the players.
“Coach (Dan) Brooks will let you know the Friday before the game,” junior defensive tackle D.J. Reader said. “Whenever we come home and play, it will probably be wrong in the program and wrong up (on the scoreboard) screen, so you really have no idea who is going to start until the night before at the hotel.”
Reader is one of four valid options to start alongside Jarrett as he has been battling it out all summer with Carlos Watkins, Josh Watson and DeShawn Williams. Though he would love to start, the 6-foot-2, 325-pound tackle says in the end it doesn’t really matter.
“We know we are always going to rotate,” he said. “Yes, it is always nice to start off the game and start off the tempo, but we know we are going to rotate and we are going to support each other no matter who is out there playing. It doesn’t really bother us as much now.”
Last year, Reader played in all 13 games and started three of them. He had 43 tackles and five tackles for loss, including three sacks. He expects those numbers to be even better this year because he is more focused on football than he ever has been.
Though it was tough because it was his first love, Reader gave up his dream of playing baseball this past spring. In his first two seasons at Clemson, he balanced the two sports, which he admitted took away some of his time to learn and grow as a football player in the spring.
“I definitely feel like I have grown and learned a lot,” he said. “I knew a lot, but I learned a lot more and paid attention to detail because I have more time to spend on it and I watch more film.
“You can focus more on the little things. You are not just around sometimes, but you are around all the time and you start to pick up on a lot of little things that can help.”
It also helped make camp a little easier this year. Reader and the rest of the Tigers concluded training camp on Tuesday and will begin Thursday working exclusively on the Georgia game plan.
“Camp was easy this year, but that comes with being older as a player,” the defensive tackle said. “You have to look back to your freshman year when you were older and you hit the wall by day four.
“Seeing that in some of the freshmen this year, it is kind of funny. It makes you look back and think, ‘Oh yeah, I remember when I wanted to go home or wanted to leave or not even go to practice.’ Camp isn’t easy, but it wasn’t as bad, I mean it was still hard, but you learn to deal with how bad it can be.”