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Clemson’s D.J. Reader leaves team, defense continues to shrink

By William Murphy

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Clemson defensive tackle D.J. Reader will be leaving team due to ‘personal issues’, departure the latest of the Tiger’s offseason woes

Clemson Tigers defensive tackle D.J. Reader will be walking away from football, as stated by head coach Dabo Swinney on Tuesday.

The news first broke early Tuesday afternoon, via ESPN’s College Football Insider Brett McMurphy stating that Reader was to resign from the football program for an “unknown amount of time” to deal with personal issues.

This would later be confirmed in a statement by head coach Dabo Swinney, saying that Reader would indeed be leaving the football program for an indefinite period. Although he didn’t release what the personal issues were, he did expand more upon the situation:

"“At the end of the day, the timing of things are never good when you’re a football player, football coach or whatever, especially in the season, but at the end of the day these are still people. They are real people with real problems and lives and they don’t always make good decisions. Sometimes they have problems, but this is a decision that he’s made to kind of step away for a little bit, and see if he can get himself better with the issues he’s dealing with. We’re moving forward just like an injury. It’s next man up.”"

Reader was one of the tools defensive coordinator Brent Venables planned to use in filling a line that was depleted of all its 2014 starters after the end of the last season.

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His loss is particularly hard for the elite Clemson defense, who has had a turbulent offseason even after the departure of the line. The Tigers lost several key players throughout the offseason, including the dismissal of sophomore defensive end Ebenezer Ogundeko, the season-ending injury to linebacker Korrin Wiggins and the departures of linebackers Korie Rogers and Kellen Jones.

As with many other spots in the defense, the hole Reader left will be filled by more of the younger players on the roster. Backups Scott Pagano and Christian Wilkins will most likely fill void, with Jabril Robinson and Albert Huggins there to pickup the extra slack.

Unfortunately, Pagano is the only one has had any playtime, the rest being freshman, and Pagano has only played a meager 4 games his freshman year. This doesn’t seem to bother Swinney, though, as he would later say in his statement, “We’ve had a great summer. This football team is focused. This football team is ready to play.”

Even as the season quickly approaches, the image of the Clemson defense continues its offseason trend of drastic changes and departures. It’s really hard to see Clemson even coming close the high expectations that last year’s defense set for this new class, but only when the Tigers take the field will we truly be able to see if Swinney’s confidence is warranted or not.

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