By Will Vandervort.

With Clemson great C.J. Spiller watching the Tigers’ seventh spring practice on Monday, Dabo Swinney could not help but brag about his new running back – Tyshon Dye.

Okay, maybe Dye isn’t a new running back, but it sure does seem that way. Spiller joined Swinney while the running backs worked out and the two could not help but marvel at the way Dye—now a redshirt sophomore—looks and is playing.

From all indications, the Elberton, Ga., native looks like a new person, he is even wearing a new number this year – adopting the No. 22 jersey as opposed to the No. 23 he has worn since coming to Clemson nearly two years ago.

“I’m real pleased with Tyshon. He is moving and making cuts and things that he was not quite able to do with the speed that he is doing it at right now,” Swinney said.

Everyone knows his story. Dye was hampered by back pains during fall camp in 2013 and eventually had surgery which ended his season. He returned to work later that year and moved into the off-season with renewed enthusiasm and purpose but soon was disappointed when he tore an achilles before spring practice began last year.

That injury kept him out until last October when he finally was able to get back to work and back to practice.

“It is a hard process because you can’t do anything. When you are chilling, your muscle stops and turns to fat,” Dye said to The Clemson Insider following Monday’s practice. “When I was out last year, it was turning into fat and I was losing more muscle and lost a lot of strength in my legs because I was not very mobile with them.”

Dye said he ballooned to 235 pounds before he was able to come back to practice. He said he played around 230 pounds late in the season, which he admitted slowed him down.

Though he rushed for 124 yards and scored two touchdowns in the only game he saw significant playing time last year, Dye says he could have done a whole lot more. There were several times in the Georgia State game he showed the vision that made him a superstar coming out of high school, but he was admittedly too slow to take advantage of them.

“I can hit a hole a whole lot faster,” he said. “I felt like at the Georgia State game if I could have hit the hole a little faster I could have probably got five or 10 more yards and probably could have even busted one.”

With the help of Clemson sports’ nutritionist Lisa Chan and Joey Batson’s strength training and conditioning program, Dye is down to 215 pounds and is playing faster, stronger and more confidently than he ever has.

“He just looks very different than what he looked in the fall,” Swinney said. “It is a combination of him continuing to gain confidence and then the off season – the work in the weight room, work ethic in the weight room, going through our off-season program, he has just really gotten back to being healthy.

“He really looks it. His body looks great as opposed to getting kind of thrown in at a high level in the latter part of a college football season and say, ‘Go get him!,’ when he has not played in a long time. He held his own. I said at that time that he really needed an off-season and a spring practice.”

Dye is getting a full does of spring practice right now and he loves the fact he has finally gotten this opportunity.

“It’s a blessing to get out there and work and try to get better every snap, every day and every play,” he said.

Dye is currently working as the No. 2 running back behind fellow redshirt sophomore Wayne Gallman, who really came into his own last season. With Zac Brooks also back in the mix, as well as the continued progress of C.J. Fuller and veteran C.J. Davidson, competition has been good at the running back position this spring.

It’s only going to get tougher in the fall when Adam Choice returns from his rehabilitation after tearing his ACL at Boston College last October. So what can Dye do in order to get on the field more and show the coaches he can be the guy they thought he could be when they recruited him to Clemson two years ago?

“I have to be more reliable. The coaches need to trust me,” he said. “I have to run harder at practice and give them a look they may like so they can want to put me in and have a lot of trust when they put me in.

“They don’t need to worry about anything else except, ‘He is going to get it done.’”

And he is going to do it a lot lighter and quicker to the hole, which means Dye will be a whole lot faster.

“He is more confident in what we are doing,” Swinney said. “Having kind of played a little bit now and gone through a whole bowl practice and all of that, gone through installation and being here this spring. He is just more confident and as a result is playing faster.”