Clemson Tigers News: Injuries pile up, staffer to head man, ranking CFP teams

As I’m sure you know by now, there have been a couple of Clemson football players that have declared for the NFL draft and won’t participate in the Orange Bowl against Tennessee.

Myles Murphy and Trent Simpson are off to the next level and we congratulate them and thank them for what they’ve done for the Tigers.

Simpson was injured and wouldn’t have been able to play even if he decided to come back, but for those that are available the injuries are piling up.

On Tuesday, Davis Allen was ill, Walker Parks was in a green jersey, Beaux Collins is out for the year and Ruke Orhorhoro and Jaedyn Lukus were limited.

Orhorhoro and Allen were upgraded for Wednesday (still no contact, but participated in drills) and Andrew Mukuba, Tyler Venables and Walker Parks were in green jerseys.

When Clemson football takes on Tennessee in the Orange Bowl there will be unfamiliar names playing on both sides.

Expect to see some names in the bowl game that you haven’t seen much of all season.  My guess is the same will be true for Tennessee as Hendon Hooker is out with an injury and Jalin Hyatt has opted out.

Again, I implore you not to ruin the national media’s perception of Clemson, but there was a transfer portal quarterback on hand for yesterday’s practice.

He’d likely fill the role Hunter Johnson played for this year’s team.

As I noted previously, the position is thin with the departure of D.J. Uiagalelei and Billy Wiles to the portal.

Other College Football News

Clemson football Offensive Player Development staffer Kaleb Nobles was named head coach of Western Florida, where he was on staff from 2017-2020.

Where does the 2018 Clemson football team that won the National Championship rank among all CFP teams?

ESPN took on the task of ranking all 36 College Football Playoff teams and I was pleasantly surprised to find the 2018 Tigers as third best.

You can quibble about some of the other Clemson playoff teams’ rankings, but overall I think it was a decent job by an organization that is soon to be home to the SEC.