“Where is Deon Cain?”

Week after week, game after game, fans have asked the question during the early part of the 2015 season. This was particularly true after a gruesome injury ended downfield threat Mike Williams’ season. Clemson’s vertical passing game seemed a shell of itself, and onlookers searching for answers wondered aloud why Cain was not getting a chance to take Williams’ place.

The ballyhooed prospect has had to wait a little longer than many preferred, but that wait may be over now. In Saturday’s win over Georgia Tech, Cain led the Tigers with five catches and 93 yards. To the delight of those anxious fans, he made a couple of plays down the field to help rack up that yardage.

“I knew I was kind of getting close,” Cain said. “When opportunities come, you’ve really got to take hold of them. I got opportunities in the game Saturday and just tried to execute on them.”

Cain had caught only six passes over the first four games of his career. That was a perplexing notion to people who closely followed the recruitment of the Tampa product.

After all, there were lofty comparisons between Cain and other hotshot young receivers that made their marks on Clemson’s program immediately upon arrival. DeAndre Hopkins led the Tigers in receiving as a freshman in 2010. Sammy Watkins did the same in 2011.

If those players could do it, the theory went, why was Cain—a player favorably compared to both—being held back?

According to co-offensive coordinator Tony Elliott, there was one simple reason: Cain was a quarterback in high school.

“Not only did he have the schematics to learn, he had the fundamentals of the position—the technique of being a wideout,” Elliott, a former receiver himself, explained. “He had not only the playbook to overcome, but he had the physical transition.”

It would be accurate to describe Cain’s development in two phases. Elliott says he has become more comfortable with the playbook over the past few weeks, but that was not enough. Cain had to take what was on the pages of his playbook and apply them to different situations—coverages, downs, distances, etc.

Elliott also wanted to make sure the staff could feel comfortable putting Cain onto the field in a variety of personnel groupings and situations so the opposition would not start to notice a pattern to his playing time.

“It’s not just a situation where if you want to throw the ball, then you run him in there, because that’s a tendency the defense will pick up on,” Elliott said. “But, when you can have him playing throughout the course of the series and you can call his number and he can go make a play, that makes it easier from a play-calling standpoint.”

Even with the hand-wringing about playing him more, Cain currently ranks second among all Tiger receivers this season with 166 yards. The freshman cares little about what has kept him on the sidelines in the past and knows he can compete with anyone that lines up across from him given his recent maturation within the confines of the offense.

“I just try to go in and do my thing,” Cain said. “I don’t really worry about other corners like that. I don’t try to believe in hypes about other people. I just know me and what I’m capable of and what my team allows me to do.”