CLEMSON — There are times during football practice when Tajh Boyd will pause for a second and think about his dad.

“He never missed a practice when I played,” Boyd said about his father, “so I am sure he would be at every practice now.”

Tim Boyd passed away unexpectedly on November 18, 2020. It’s a day Tajh Boyd reflects on because his father’s death helped change his life.

At the time, Boyd was lost. He was already out of the game he grew up loving so much.

He was doing everything he could to distance himself from the game. He even shut out his father and mother after his NFL dreams never really materialized.

“For a long time, I ran from football. Football was good, but I felt the game never gave me what I gave it,” Boyd said. “To a degree, it created stress between me and my parents. It got to the point where they saw more in me than I saw in myself.”

Boyd had a record-breaking career at Clemson, where led the Tigers to its first ACC Championship in 20 years and top 10 bowl wins over LSU and Ohio State. It appeared life was good.

However, Boyd does not remember much or any of it. Instead, he was thinking too much about his future of being an NFL quarterback.

“My senior year, I do not remember very much,” he recalled. “It was always about where I was going. It was the talk. It was the conversations. It was the agents. It was all the things you experience.”

And then there was the disappointment.

None of the things they talked about or dreamed about panned out.

After deciding to stay at Clemson for his senior, instead of going pro early, things did not go according to plan.

At Clemson, they went well enough. The Tigers went 11-2 during Boyd’s senior season which was capped with a win over No. 6 Ohio State in the 2014 Orange Bowl.

And though Boyd had a great senior season, his stock in the draft slipped, a lot based on how he played in Clemson’s loss to Florida State that year.

Once considered a sure thing and a first-round pick, Boyd fell to the sixth round of the 2014 NFL Draft, where the New York Jets selected him with the 213 overall pick.

Boyd was later cut by the Jets and signed with the Fall Experimental League. The following spring he signed a one-year deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers before being released from the team on August 18.

“Mike Tomlin would tell me every day. ‘Tajh! Take out the trash.’ I would look to the ground and think, ‘Where is the trash at?’ Eventually, by the third or fourth time, he would point to his head, ‘Take out the trash,” Boyd recalled.

The former Clemson star never got another shot in the NFL and by June of 2016, he was out of football all together.

Boyd lost his confidence. He lost his joy.

“There was a time there when I hated football,” he said. “I pushed my parents away because I knew how much they loved it or how much they believed in me being able to do it. I got to a point where I did not feel like I could do it anymore.

“I was overthinking. I remember I was in Pittsburgh, and I was overthinking things on every play. I just was not winning the day. I would throw a 20-yard dig on a rope and then I would miss a five-yard out-route, and I would just beat myself up.”

The pressure to succeed was overwhelming, as Boyd felt like he was letting everyone down, especially his parents.

“I just wanted so badly to be what my parents thought I was as a player,” he said.

When Boyd’s father died, it hit him. It hit him hard.

At first, he became more reclusive than before. He lived alone and only came out to work or for an occasional family event, though he would only stay for a short time.

Boyd’s mom, Carla, started to worry. She worried so much, she asked Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney to drop in and check on him.

Swinney did this a few times and even asked Boyd to come to a game or to come visit the team at the facility. He wanted Boyd to see he was loved, and people were concerned about him. He wanted Boyd to see that he had a purpose in life.

Eventually, Swinney had enough. He demanded Boyd stop pushing football away and instead come back to it because that’s where his family was and they need him as much as he needs them.

“I think, in a way, it was always going to end up like this. When Coach asked me to come back (to Clemson), I struggled with the decision, mainly because I knew it was the decision I needed to make,” Boyd said. “I knew it would come down to having a talk with the giants that were in my life.

“I realized over time that it was never about more for me to have, but more for me to give. To be here now, at this time, I want to take this thing as far as it can go.”

Boyd returned to Clemson in 2021 in an offensive player development role. After three seasons in that capacity, he transitioned in 2024 to serve as an offensive analyst and assistant quarterbacks coach.

After running away from football for almost five years, Boyd discovered what his purpose is in life. When he first got back to Clemson, he sat down and wrote down his philosophies and his principles.

The first one is to believe in himself. The next, believe in somebody the same way others believe in him.

“So many people are like that in my life. My Dad, especially, my Mom, Coach Swinney, Coach Bruce, my little league coach, Coach D, my high school coach. It is like, when you forget that, this is when things get really challenging,” Boyd said. “You start battling things that you had no idea you needed to fight.

“To be here now, and to be able to speak life into guys and not death, that is what I am here for. I think all of those moments led up to this. Those moments with Coach Tomlin… Those side conversations I had with Coach Swinney, ‘Hey! Why are you not at the game?’ The game meant a lot to me. It is just remembering what it felt like. It was a joy to play football.”

And now he enjoys coaching it, and at times, just for a second at practice, he thinks about his dad and what he might think of him now.

“He would say that I am walking in my purpose,” Boyd smiled. “There are so many things I wish I could talk to him about.  I am sure he would have his comments about what needs to change and what needs to be better.

“There are times when I am watching a recruit, I wonder what he would be thinking about this guy right here… I know he would be proud.”