Clemson running back to transfer. Veteran defender to miss extended time with injury
Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney made two major announcements concerning the roster Monday night during his weekly Tiger Talks radio show.
The first: Tigers defensive lineman Tyler Davis will be out for seven to eight weeks. After the ACC opener Saturday against Georgia Tech, it was discovered that Davis has a torn bicep. He’s scheduled to have surgery Tuesday morning to reattach it.
“He had five extra efforts in the game, I mean, just played tremendous,” Swinney said of Davis. “Hopefully, he heals up quick and we get him back for a stretch run. Man, what a great, great player and a great game that young man played. I mean, he was tremendous.”
Davis was unavailable for Clemson’s season opener against Georgia but recorded eight tackles on the year after starting in the next two games.
The Tigers’ mentor followed it up by announcing that earlier in the day, senior running back Lyn-J Dixon told him that he intends to enter the transfer portal.
“He’s going to focus on graduating. He graduates in December, really proud of that,” Swinney said. “Wish him well.”
During his time at Clemson, Dixon tallied 1,420 rushing yards on 218 carries. The Georgia native entered the 2021 season averaging 6.6 yards per carry, which is second in Clemson history behind Travis Etienne (7.2) among players with at least 100 carries. He ends the year with 48 yards on 10 carries in three games played.
Dixon was held out of the first half of Clemson’s season opener against Georgia due to “team rules.” He started against S.C. State in the Tigers’ first home game, but only had four carries for 27 yards. When asked about it after the 49-3 victory on Sept. 11, Swinney said Dixon had to “grow up” and stay out of running backs coach C.J. Spiller’s doghouse.
Tigers offensive coordinator Tony Elliott also spoke on the situation last week.
‘Lyn-J’s been, he’s been used to me and now he’s getting used to Spiller,” said Elliott, who relinquished his running backs coaching duties to Spiller to switch to tight ends in February. “But, y’all know Spiller. Y’all know the character that he has and how he’s going to establish the hierarchy in that room. Any of us that are in a situation where you’ve got a chain of command, you’ve got to respect the chain of command and do things according to how the person that’s leading the room sets it. So, it’s really more just accountability and communication between the two and they’re working through it, but you know our program, too.
“That’s what the foundation of our program is: accountability.”
The Tigers play at N.C. State at 3:30 p.m. Saturday (ESPN).
This story was originally published September 20, 2021 at 8:14 PM with the headline "Clemson running back to transfer. Veteran defender to miss extended time with injury."
