Bryant Wesco says he's thriving under coaches' teaching, confident into final stretch

Bryant Wesco has been one of the young stars in Clemson's attack.

Grayson Mann - Staff Writer - Wednesday, November 20 2024

CLEMSON - When Bryant Wesco arrived on campus in January, he barely knew certain defensive coverages.

As Dabo Swinney put it throughout the summer, his promising freshman receivers needed time in the crock pot.

For Wesco, that knowledge of the game beyond dominating at the high school level would take time. It was up to him to determine how that path would play out.

Something Swinney has preached for his younger receivers has been the buy-in of being impactful without the ball. Sometimes, that impact can be made off the field.

Much like Sammy Brown described how there’s an art to studying the game, Wesco has grasped that side of growing as a collegiate athlete. Now, Wesco is able to identify those looks in game-time situations, which has helped him develop as a player as he grows within Clemson’s roster. In order to learn those lessons that college football consistently teaches, he needed a teacher to pass on that instruction.

Enter Tyler Grisham.

Following a disappointing 2023 Clemson season from a production standpoint, Wesco says that it became Grisham’s personal mission to right the wrongs. That motivation has seemed to rub off on the young freshman, who has soaked in as much information as he possibly can.

“He's (Grisham) been a great teacher for receivers, especially this year,” Wesco said. “I feel like he's taking it real personally. Coming off the year they had last year, he's taken it real personally and helped us a lot this year, especially going into this season. He wanted us to focus on being the guy, being the person for the team, and so he's sat with us a lot, a lot more than I would've initially thought. And so just being with him and being with the assistant coaches to him, they really taught us a lot.”

Another transition that Wesco has had to learn over time has been working within a steady rotation. No longer is it simply Wesco on the boundary dominating high school football in Texas, being the only go-to option in the offense.

He’s learned to work within a growing Clemson rotation, besides guys like T.J. Moore, Troy Stellato, and Antonio Williams.

Wesco knows it is in his power to determine his reps on the field, and prove to the coaches he’s worthy of that playing time.

“Going from high school, being in a hundred percent of the time to going to college, they got guys you could roll in,” Wesco said. “They got guys all around the depth chart, so I mean get guys get tired, and so we need to be able to have that depth to roll in, and I mean I know that we got all the guys on the depth chart have been making plays all year, so we just got to take the opportunities that we get and make sure that we make the most out of him and just being able to know that we make coach play you and make coach not want to take you out the rotation that if he does, you're one of the best players so you got to be able to step up in there. But yeah, I've just been trying to prove myself to be one of those guys that needs to be in that on the field most of the time.”

That active motivation across the board has seen a jump in production from the wide receiver room, with a healthy balance of competition only seen as a benefit.

Now, going from January to the close of the season, Wesco knows what he didn’t know when he stepped on campus for the first time.

He’s grown more comfortable as a player and within this rotation.

As the season now draws to a close, Wesco hopes his added knowledge can translate into comfortable wins, and maybe a berth to the postseason.