Clemson Football: What losing Logan Rudolph means for DEs

The Clemson football program lost a really good player in Logan Rudolph at the defensive end position. Here’s a look at what it means.

The Clemson football fanbase received somewhat surprising news last week when DE Logan Rudolph announced that he’d be foregoing the remainder of his football career to pursue a new dream: A potential Hollywood acting career.

In addition to potentially pursuing a career in acting, Rudolph was reportedly concerned about avoiding further injuries.

He was listed as a co-starter on the Tigers’ 2019 team.

Here’s what losing Logan Rudolph means to the Clemson football team moving forward.

Defensive End Room:

Even though Rudolph is leaving, the Tigers still have plenty of depth and experience returning at the defensive end position.

At this point, I’d expect the depth chart to look something like this:

DE1- Xavier Thomas

• Justin Mascoll

DE2- Justin Foster or K.J. Henry

You’re going to see a heavy rotation of these four veteran defensive ends throughout the season. I’d expect Thomas to win one of the starting positions with Foster and Henry battling it out for the other starting position.

Mascoll likely move over to the defensive end position with Thomas to fill the depth chart as a second-stringer who sees time at both spots.

In addition to the four veterans returning, Clemson will add talented 5-star DE Myles Murphy to the mix. Murphy will undoubtedly avoid redshirting and will have an opportunity to get on the field and solidify his spot on the depth chart.

If the Tigers need more depth, they could move one of the redshirt freshmen outside linebackers or defensive tackles over to defensive end, but they’ll likely rely on these five first as they continue to develop at the position.

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