Asked what stands out to him about Peter Woods, Wes Goodwin laughed and smiled before offering a succinct reply that says a lot.

“What doesn’t?” Goodwin said. “I mean, he’s special.”

Clemson’s defensive coordinator then proceeded to heap praise on Woods, the former five-star defensive lineman who enrolled early at Clemson in January after signing with the Tigers in December.

“He’s one of those that just rolls in. I mean, you just know he’s different,” said Goodwin, who pointed out that Woods arrived and immediately had the fourth- or fifth-most muscle mass on the team.

“Just his explosiveness, and some of these recruiting sites knock him for not being tall enough, but he’s very much tall enough.”

While Woods may have been knocked for his height, the 6-foot-2, 300-pounder was still very highly regarded by all of the major recruiting services, with ESPN, Rivals and 247Sports all ranking him as a top-60 national prospect regardless of position. ESPN was the highest among them on Woods, touting him as the top defender and No. 4 overall prospect in the 2023 class.

Woods, who committed to Clemson in July 2022, led Thompson High School (Alabaster, Ala.) to four straight 7A State Championships from 2019-22 as his team compiled a 50-5 record in that span. He finished his high school career with 260 tackles, 72 tackles for loss and 29.5 sacks, and recorded 90 tackles, 23 tackles for loss and eight sacks as a senior despite being double-teamed the entire season.

Goodwin had nothing but good things to say about Woods, both as a player and person.

“He’s an amazing young man off the field,” Goodwin said. “Comes from a great family, great program, four state championships in the state of Alabama. So, he’s a winner. Works extremely hard. He’s powerful, explosive. He can play on the edge, play inside, he can play all the techniques up front, and he’s just super heavy-handed, explosive, violent. The list goes on and on. We could be here all day talking about him. But really excited to get him in the mix.”

Dear Old Clemson has a limited number of footballs and posters signed by Clemson’s Avengers.

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