Swinney on Kelly Bryant opening practice as the starter

by Tony Crumpton - Assoc. Editor - Wed Mar 01 12:34:27 GMT-04:00 2017

CLEMSON -- One of the bigger questions and hot topics this offseason for Clemson fans has been who will lead the Tigers at the quarterback positions in 2017. Clemson has a plethora of talented options at signal-caller with Kelly Bryant, Zerrick Cooper, Tucker Israel, Hunter Johnson, and Chase Brice.

Dabo Swinney held a press conference on Wednesday morning and confirmed that veteran quarterback Kelly Bryant is the starter going into spring practice.

"Kelly Bryant is definitely the starter going into spring ball, but as I tell these guys all the time there are no lifetime contracts," Swinney said. "You got to be the best guy all the time. Deshaun [Watson] was the starter not just because what he last week. He was the starter because of what he did every day in practice. You earn it every week. You earn it every day. Every game is evaluated, otherwise, why do you grade the film. It all matters. It's going to be a fun thing to watch as we go through the process. All I know if we got good people on this roster and I am excited to see Kelly get the opportunity to run out there and see if he is ready to kind of take that next step and lead this group. We will give everybody an opportunity to compete and the best guy is the guy who will run out there first. Maybe it gets resolved in the spring, maybe it doesn't. I have no idea. this is college football. You don't get preseason games. You don't get all that kind of stuff. Sometimes it can carry over into the season before you really can sort it out. I have no idea. We will just have to evaluate each and every day."

Swinney has no doubt that Kelly is currently the No. 1 quarterback on the roster.

"Kelly is clearly number one," Swinney said. "There is no doubt about that. He would go play for us today, and I would be excited to see him. But how's he going to take that role? How is he going to respond to that? He hasn't been the guy. We will see how he does."

In the last two seasons in limited action, Bryant has completed 13-of-18 passes for 75 yards, a touchdown, and an interception. He also has 35 rushes for 178 yards and three touchdowns.