CLEMSON, S.C. – Both guys played at first – the veteran getting most of the time, but the precocious freshman seeing plenty of action. And then four games in, the coaches had seen enough. It was time, they determined, that Trevor Lawrence became the starter.
“It was easy to see,” says Miller Forristall, adding that he’d seen the moment coming for months, ever since a lanky kid with a buzz cut had begun working out with Cartersville High School’s varsity players. So when the coaches called Forristall, a talented junior quarterback, into a meeting, he understood.
You know Lawrence as Clemson’s true freshman quarterback, a long-haired phenom with a rocket arm who has elevated the Tigers’ offense – and by extension, their hopes of winning the national championship – since supplanting senior starter Kelly Bryant in late September. Clemson coaches say they just knew.
“This guy is the best guy,” says co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott, recounting the conversations among the coaching staff before making the change. “He makes us different.”
And their move this season is very similar to the scenario that unfolded four years earlier, when Cartersville coach Joey King called Forristall, a talented junior, into the office. Forristall knew, too.
“They’d talked about how good an eighth-grader was,” Forristall says, “but you take that with a grain of salt, because how good could the kid really be?
“The kid was pretty good.”
Source: Read Full Article