Boyd on Clemson's QB commits and the future after Watson

Hunter Johnson is currently rated as the #1 QB for 2017

by Tony Crumpton - Assoc. Editor - Tue Aug 09 12:28:09 GMT-04:00 2016

Former Clemson standout Tajh Boyd knows that all good things eventually come to an end and Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson will head to the NFL more than likely after his junior campaign.

So what does Boyd think about the quarterback commits that Clemson has acquired for the future?

"I talk to Chase Brice all the time," Boyd said in a recent podcast with WCCP's Scott Cole. "I had a chance to meet Hunter Johnson. We may have another in Trevor Lawrence. It's not going to slow down anytime soon. But the thing is you can't really bank everything that you see off of ratings and stars and things of that nature because you only truly find out who someone is in the heat of the moment, when your back is against the wall. At some point after this year all these guys are going to be facing that. They are going to be facing competition at practice. They are going to be facing the competition at the spring game. Honestly, the coaches are going to have to make a choice and decision at some point and they are going to give the keys to whoever handles it the best. Whoever is mature in the moments and they look at everything. They take into account how a guy responds after an interception. How a guy responds with the team is down. When a coach is in your ear and in your face, how do you handle that situation? Whoever handles that best after this season is going have a chance to run with the offense because the talent around these guys is exceptional from the receiving corp to the running backs to the offensive line and obviously the defense and what Venables is doing over there is amazing."

Boyd believes that Johnson has all the tools to be a great college quarterback early in college.

"You look at his film [Johnson]," Boyd said. "He puts it all together. The guy is big. He's athletic. He can play. He can throw the ball whenever you need him to and makes smart decisions. He may be one of these guys that come in and can get it right away, who can understand it right away. It's not really much of a gap between the quarterbacks. They are very similar in age. When you are talking about redshirting. I think it comes into consideration and it could be any of these guys. Will Zerrick redshirt this year? He probably could. I'm not sure because of how close in age all these are - Chase Brice, Hunter Johnson, Tucker Israel is still there. It's just a lot of guys right now in close proximity. Some guys will be here. Some guys will transfer. It is just the nature of the beast. So the competition will be fierce for sure."

Clemson might potentially add a 5-star quarterback in Trevor Lawrence and Boyd knows that most top players don't care about roster competition.

"Really just self-confidence," Boyd said. "Depending on who you have around reassuring you, pushing you to that situation. Things happen over time. Some guys will stay committed for a while. Some guys decide to decommit. I think everybody Clemson is recruiting has that mentality of I can be the guy. So when you have that nothing but good things will come out of it. But some of these guys are going to come to a realization a little bit earlier than they imagined. I was committed to West Virginia at one point, and I decommitted. Geno (Smith) had committed after I took my hiatus and was looking around and things of that natural. At one point I still wanted to go to West Virginia and compete with Geno just for the simple fact that competition brings out the best in all of us. So you don't want to necessarily always go to a place where it seems so easy for you because if it does then likely it's not the best situation for you. You want to be thrust into the competition. You want to be able to go out there and see who is the better man because you will build character because of it. Competition brings out the best in everybody. I truly believe that and we are going to get that with these quarterbacks coming in."

(Scott Cole is a WCCP radio-host on 12-3pm Wednesdays and Fridays and will co-host the Tiger Pregame Show this season on WCCP, and his website is ScottColeShow.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @ScottColeShow)