With the media watching from the balcony and his teammates surrounding him, Greg Huegel did not look like a walk-on when he drilled a 47-yard field goal to close practice on Thursday inside Clemson’s Indoor Practice Facility.

The kick could have been good from 50-plus yards. Even when the ball came off his foot, it sounded different than the kicks from Alex Spence and Christian Groomes.

On Friday, Huegel continued to impress the coaching staff as he drilled kicks from 25, 28, 37 (twice) and 43 yards. He did miss one kick, but that miss was placed on the holder after he dropped the snap and failed to get the ball set before Huegel kicked it.

Where did the Tigers find Huegel?

“We picked him up at the grocery store,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said.

It wasn’t exactly the parking lot at Bi-Lo. Huegel was found during tryouts last spring. The Clemson coaches wanted to bring him in last fall, but they did have a roster spot for him.

“We had him on our radar,” Swinney said.

“He was the one guy we said, ‘We are going to bring him out when fall camp gets here.’ I wasn’t hundred percent sure he was going to be in the one hundred-and-five (man roster) until the situation with Ammon (Lakip). That allowed us to go ahead a bring him in and he has done a nice job.”

Huegel missed just one kick on Thursday and has consistently shown through four practices he is the more accurate and strongest leg of the three guys competing for the job. Spence, a scholarship player, has performed pretty well himself, while Groomes has struggled the last two days, missing four field goals altogether.

Right now, Swinney says Spence is in front, but it is not by the widest of margins.

“Every kick matters. His percentage is just a hair higher than Huegel’s who is higher than Groomes, who is third, as far as the percentage after four days. That’s all you can go on.”

Huegal is from Columbia’s Blythewood High School, and is majoring in architecture at Clemson.

“It’s the same snapper and same holder. We are trying to keep that consistent so we can get a true evaluation and try to give them the same amount of kicks and create as many different pressure situations we can,” Swinney said.

For those wondering, Spence was perfect on Friday from the same distances as Huegel.

“It is going to be a day-to-day battle. Every kick matters,” Swinney said. “Whoever comes out with the best camp is who we will run out there first.”