SUNSET, S.C. — Assistant coaches are often tasked with wearing many different hats on the job, and Danny Pearman wears as many as any of them.

Pearman is responsible for coaching the tight ends and special teams, and although he’s not the only one with a say in coaching one of the most commonly forgotten units in football, he oversees and facilitates the many phases of special teams.

“Our biggest thing is we have six phases that make up our special teams and in some of those phases last year, we were pretty good,” he said from The Reserve at Lake Keowee on Tuesday. “Greg Huegel was pretty good at kicking field goals. We were pretty good at field goal block. We were middle of the pack in kickoff return, but there were also some glaring areas that we have to get better at as a collective group.”

Recently, Clemson has not been known for having a special teams unit that warrants high praise. Aside from Huegel, a first-team freshman All-American, who converted a national-best of 27 field goals in 32 attempts last season, the Tigers did not top the charts in special teams productivity.

Pearman explained part of the reason Clemson did not appear to be as good in punt returns had nothing to do with the returners.

“Getting somebody to actually give us a returnable punt has been something that college football has changed more so in the last five years than anything,” Pearman said. “I think we had 113 potential punt situations where we were returning the ball, and out of those situations, I think we had actually 13 returnable punts that were punted to us.”

However, Pearman hopes to see improvement in that area in 2016 and he believes there may be some changes coming with the addition of running back Tavien Feaster. The biggest test for Feaster would be if he is able to field the ball like Pearman knows Artavis Scott and Hunter Renfrow can do and that will be something to analyze in fall camp. Pearman also threw out the idea of experimenting with Wayne Gallman returning some punts now that there is added depth at the running back position.

Clemson has a lot of options to test out in the return game, but improving the coverage is a harder task.

“We have worked really hard this off season in addressing some of those issues and getting kids on there that not only understand it and realize the impact of the game it will take and then work as a collective body to improve in areas such as kickoff coverage,” Pearman said.

Although Clemson has talented players on the roster, finding athletes who have the experience and determination to do well on special teams isn’t so easy. One player Pearman mentioned that stood out in special teams coverage was linebacker Dorian O’Daniel. Clemson named him their Special Teams Player of the Year after leading the unit with 19 tackles.

Pearman hopes adjustments made after last season will help the unit become more of a strength in 2016.

“Really it is just working as a cohesive unit just as you would on offense or defense,” he said. “You don’t spend quite as much time on it as you do offensive plays per say. You don’t want to spend an hour a day just using kickoff coverage, but we just have to find the right guys that want to be on it. A lot of it is want to, from that standpoint, and you’ve got to have some guys that would be willing to go down there and get them on the ground.”

While Pearman may have his hands full with working to improve the special teams, coaching the tight ends poses a lot of excitement. Not only does Clemson return Mackey Award Finalist Jordan Leggett, but the Tigers also have been fine-tuning a talented group of backups.

“There’s a group of guys that’s working behind him (Leggett) that really need to challenge him in a lot of ways and follow suit to him,” Pearman said. “You talk about guys like Garrett Williams who came in as a freshman last year and played, then you have Milan Richard and we’re ready to see some production out of him. Canon Smith will be coming off of a shoulder injury this spring and will be with us by August for sure, and D.J. Greenlee has had a productive last two weeks of spring.”

While there are high expectations for Leggett, Pearman sets the same standards for his entire rotation of tight ends.

“I want to see consistency. I want to see there not be a drop off behind Leggett. I want to see a group of guys that really, really are team oriented,” he said.