CLEMSON — Clemson began fall practice on Thursday at the Allen Reeves Football Complex. The media was allowed to watch the first seven periods of practice.

Here is what we saw.

• Will Gilchrist, now in his second season at Clemson, is the Tigers’ new special teams coach. He introduced a new drill that has the players understanding their alignments when it comes to protecting punts and kicks. He put an orange strip behind each player and had them react to different line calls.
• Former Clemson safety and longtime analyst, DeAndre McDaniel, is helping Gilchrist with special teams, along with former linebacker Ben Boulware, who is working as a graduate assistant on Dabo Swinney’s staff.
• Speaking of special teams, it was not a good period for Clemson’s kickers. Robert Gunn missed kicks of 30, 37 and 41 yards. He did make a 30-yard field goal and one from 37 as well. The 30-yarder he missed bounced off the right goal post. All of his misses were wide right.
• Freshman kicker Nolan Hauser did not fair much better. He missed kicks from 37 and 43 yards. He was 2-for-2 from 30 yards. He also made a 37-yard field goal. His two misses were wide right, as well.
• Besides helping with special teams, Boulware was also helping with the linebackers, though most of what we saw he was observing defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin and new coach Lorenzo Ward, who was South Carolina’s defensive coordinator under Steve Spurrier.
• Goodwin did show us a little bit of his nickel alignment near the end of the seventh period. He was just lining guys up and explaining the scheme to them.
• The whole time I was out there, Peter Woods was working exclusively with the other defensive ends. Though he checked in at 319 pounds, he looked fast and explosive off the ball.
• Nick Eason was entertaining on the sled drills. He had freshman Champ Thompson do the drill twice, telling him to “do it over and act like you are hitting somebody.”
• Eason also got on to Tre Williams, having him re-do the drill two extra times. During the same drill, he told freshman tackle Hevin Brown-Shuler, “that is heavy duty” as he finished the drill.
• Eason told redshirt freshman Vic Burley to hit it like he is 270. Burley, of course, checked in at 332 pounds, 17 pounds bigger than he was in the spring. Burley was in a green jersey, which means he could only participate individual drills.
• Defensive tackle DeMonte Capehart grimaced in pain after he did the sled drill. It appeared he did something with his left shoulder. He stayed in and continued to practice.