Will Taylor Remaining at Clemson Beneficial to Both Football and Baseball
At the end of the day, keeping one out of two isn't bad.
Clemson headed into the weekend facing the possibility of losing both 2021 quarterback signee's to the MLB Draft. While the Tigers did in fact lose Bubba Chandler after he was selected by the Pirates with the first pick of the third round, Taylor's name never was called on day two. He was eventually picked in the 19th round by the Rangers, but will remain in school.
Taylor being a part of the program provides Swinney's team with some much-needed depth at the quarterback position. With Taisun Phommachanh out indefinitely recovering from a torn Achilles, the lack of bodies in the quarterback room has been a hot topic of conversation.
It also adds more talent to a room that was looking like could have just starter D.J. Uiagalelei and redshirt freshman Hunter Helms, along with Billy Wiles, a true freshman who turned down some scholarship offers to join the Tigers as a preferred walk on.
While Taylor may not be labeled a 5-star talent by the recruiting services, he is a winner, a value Swinney puts a lot of stock into. Last season at Dutch Fork, he helped lead the Silver Foxes to their fifth consecutive state title by passing for 2,237 yards with 21 touchdown passes to just 4 interceptions. He also rushed the ball 60 times for 448 yards and four more touchdowns. 224 of those rushing yards came in one game against Carolina Forest.
The plan is for Taylor to play quarterback during his freshman season with the coaching staff moving him to wideout in year number two. His elite-level speed gives him the potential to be a valuable asset as a pass catcher.
“He's a winner, number one," Swinney said in December. "High character kid. He's not as big as you'd like in a quarterback, but I really wanted to see his as a receiver so I put him at wideout at camp to see how natural he was. It took about two minutes. First of all, he can fly. His acceleration makes him special, his lateral quickness and vertical acceleration. And he's got natural ball skills."
"The big thing for me watching him was realizing he could legitimately play QB for us. In this world we're in now, in the transfer portal era, I've had Will in my mind for a while. We are going to train him as a QB in the first year, but move him to wideout. I think he has a chance to be elite at receiver but he will have the foundation of being a quarterback in place."
Having him on board is not only a big win for football, it's a big win for Monte Lee and the baseball program. As good as Taylor is on the football field, he really shines on the baseball diamond and after suffering their first losing season in more than six decades, Lee's team will absolutely benefit from a player of Taylor's stature.
"We try to share with them the benefits of the Clemson experience,” Lee said last month. “I mean I don’t know if you can have a better experience than going to school at a school like Clemson, playing in the best football program in the country with Clemson football. And getting a chance to do both is a very unique situation, where you can play football and baseball at Clemson, I don’t know that there is a price tag on that type of experience."
After a stellar senior season in which the outfielder hit .429 with six home runs and 30 RBI, Taylor was named the Gatorade Player of the Year in South Carolina. He also had a .576 OBP, stole 19 bases and scored 34 runs. With his superb bat and speed, he's the kind of player capable of providing a spark at the top of the lineup, something the Tigers sorely missed in 2021.
