D.J. Reader, who was voted a permanent captain by his teammates before the bowl season began, logged over 200 snaps and started five times in 2015.

In eight games last season, he had over 30 tackles.

Reader started just nine times during his Clemson career, but he played a lot of over his four-year career, totaling more than 1,000 snaps. Pretty much all of his work came at the nose guard position.

The lead candidate to takeover in his place has already done it. Scott Pagano won the starting job Reader was supposed to occupy before he took a leave of absence last summer.

Pagano started in nine games and played over 340 snaps. For his redshirt sophomore season, he had over 40 tackles and two tackles for loss. The best performance in 2015 was against Georgia Tech when he had 12 tackles.

Clemson has another nose guard in redshirt freshman Gage Cervenka.

Senior Carlos Watkins started all but one game in 2015 and will probably get most of the starts again in 2016, which leaves Christian Wilkins and Dexter Lawrence as backup 3-technique defensive tackles.

But Dan Brooks wants his best defensive tackles to play. It wouldn’t surprise us to see at least one of those two spelling Pagano at times in 2016.

If you haven’t already order your copy today of Guts & Glory – Tales of Clemson’s Historic 2015 Football Season to help you celebrate and remember this special season.