CLEMSON — Five different players graced Memorial Stadium’s end zone in the Clemson Tigers’ dominant 40-14 win over Stanford Saturday night.
The 17th-ranked Tigers (3-1, 2-0 ACC) have boasted their arsenal of scoring weapons in the last three wins, granting a new player their first collegiate touchdown in each game.
Clemson’s Cole Turner, a redshirt sophomore from Vestavia Hills, Ala., secured his first receiving touchdown in the victory to extend the Tigers’ lead to 27-7 with 1:09 to play in the third quarter.
The 43-yard touchdown bomb from quarterback Cade Klubnik initiated three consecutive scoring drives in the third and fourth quarters that put the final result out of any uncertainty.
“Every day you go out there you want to score a touchdown,” Turner said. “So finally being able to get my first touchdown catch feels great.”
Turner scored his first touchdown in a Clemson uniform on the ground against NC State with an 18-yard reverse to the end zone. He was the first Tigers receiver to account for a rushing touchdown since 2021.
Head coach Dabo Swinney has consistently praised Turner’s performance in practice and games since he arrived in the Upstate in 2022, noting after his touchdown run that “he can fly.”
Turner missed the majority of the 2023 season after tearing three abductor muscles against FAU in September. His reemergence has proved crucial to the offensive depth that Clemson fans craved last year.
“This is by far is the deepest room we’ve had since I’ve been here, so it’s just great that they [the offense] come to work every day,” he said. “We all want each other to be better and so it just makes me better, makes everybody else better.”
The former basketball standout feels more confident about the weapons at the Tigers’ disposal this year, but for Turner, “Clemson was always the place I wanted to be.”
The adversity Turner and many other Tigers faced last year shaped a new, hungry mindset for the 2024 Tigers.
Clemson has a chance to continue chasing this hunger next week when they venture to Tallahassee, Fla., to take on the Florida State Seminoles.