Clemson’s Bryant winning in wake left by Watson
Clemson won the national championship last year, and despite a treasure chest of defensive talent returning, no one figured the Tigers for challenging to repeat. Deshaun Watson was gone.
Watson was a quarterback supreme for Clemson and has shown his chops by infusing the Houston Texans with some life as a rookie. But it’s not like Clemson is destitute without him.
Junior quarterback Kelly Bryant has emerged as a playmaker himself. Clemson already this September has won two showdown games — Auburn, at Louisville — and now comes a third, Saturday night at Virginia Tech.
Bryant’s numbers against Auburn and Louisville are better than his numbers against Kent State and Boston College:
•One touchdown pass, no interceptions, 41 of 61 passing against the tough foes; one TD, three interceptions, 33 of 48 passing against the lesser opponents.
One thing is clear. Clemson is glad to have him.
“"He was a little bit different than Deshaun in that he was more of an athlete than he was a true quarterback and passer," Scott said. "Deshaun coming out high school was probably more of a passer than he was a runner of the football. Kelly really had to work on his passing game and throwing and accuracy and all those types of things. For what we do in our passing game, we knew that Kelly would be a great fit for that, if he could handle everything else and win the job."
Bryant has won the job and is winning the hearts of Clemson fans accustomed to great quarterbacking.