Parker is the man

By: Will Vandervort

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful day and enjoy this
nice weather that we will have. I know I will because I will be at Doug
Kingsmore this afternoon taking in the third game of this three-game
series.

So far the Tigers have split the first two games with No. 5 Miami and a
win today would be huge for this team’s confidence.

Speaking of confidence, how about the confidence of Kyle Parker? After
putting on a show in the Annual Orange and White game yesterday by
throwing for a touchdown and rushing for another, he goes across the
street to Doug Kingsmore Stadium and puts on a bigger show.

The sophomore on the baseball diamond finished the doubleheader 3-for-7
with two home runs and 5 RBIs. In his first at bat, he singled up the
middle in the third inning with two outs to drive in his first RBI. That’s
impressive no matter what, but to do it against a Top 5 team and to do it
after playing in a complete football game that takes a special kind of
athlete.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, Parker completed 13-of-21 passes for
171 yards with no interceptions in leading the White team to a 30-13
victory in the Orange and White game.

Speaking of the Orange and White game, there were a lot of things that
came out of the game that can be encouraging. For one, the defense appears
to have a lot of quality depth across the board. There were guys on both
sides making plays.

Da’Quan Bowers, Jarvis Jenkins and Brandon Thompson stood out the most to
me as they kind of did what they wanted to when they wanted to do it.
Bowers is a beast that I feel very few people can block and Jenkins and
Thompson remind me of the days when Clemson had one of the best interior
defenses in the country with guys like William Perry, William Devane,
Michael Dean Perry, Chester McGlockton, Brenston Buckner and Trevor Pryce.

The secondary showed its depth by picking off three passes and the
linebackers have some players, but they are still young and are a work in
progress. There is no doubt Kevin Steele will have them ready by the time
the season starts.

Offensively it is hard to judge anything because the offensive line was so
split up and everything they did was vanilla. Besides Parker’s
performance, what I took away from the game was the play of the wide
receivers. If this group is supposed to be Clemson’s weakness this year,
then Tiger fans should feel good about the team’s chances to be
successful.

I believe only one guy had a drop yesterday and Brandon Ford again showed
us that he has a chance to be a special player here before it is all said
and done. Marquan Jones showed off his speed and Xavier Dye looked solid
as he has all spring when we have had the chance to watch the team.

The most impressive part of the game was the play of the tight ends.
Michael Palmer caught five passes for 86 yards and Durrell Barry had three
for 29 yards. When was the last time any of us saw the tight ends catch
eight passes in a Clemson game?