Dabo Swinney updates status of Tre Williams, Troy Stellato
Dabo Swinney provided updates on a pair of Clemson players who have been banged up this offseason in defensive tackle Tre Williams and receiver Troy Stellato.
Williams isn’t back and available to play yet in the opener against Duke, but he is making progress. Williams is practicing in a green non-contact jersey after being fully sidelined for months.
The redshirt junior has battled injuries throughout his career and has undergone multiple surgeries.
“He’s doing good. He’s not ready to play. He’s doing really good, though. He’s going to be ready to play. We’re going to kind of see how it goes with him,” Swinney said. “As y’all know, I mean lord have mercy, he’s had shoulders. He’s had knees. He’s had a little bit of everything on his body. … So we’re really kind of trying to take it slow.”
Tre Williams could end up redshirting in 2023, depending on how healthy the Tigers can stay at defensive tackle.
Clemson is deep at the position, so Williams may take it slow for most of the year, appear in four games and still redshirt.
“A lot of that depends on how we perform, how we can stay healthy at the d-tackle position,” Swinney said. “We’re going to hold him as long as we can. If we can steal a year back, that would be great for us and for him. We don’t know right now, but he’s trending in the right direction, doing good. He’s back in green, so we’ll see where he is in a few weeks.”
While Williams isn’t ready to play yet, it does sound like Troy Stellato will be available for the Tigers opener against Duke.
The redshirt sophomore missed all of last season with a torn ACL and got banged up again this summer, but he is back practicing full-go.
“He missed all of camp, basically, but he’s ready to roll. He actually practiced for about the past week, I guess. And he looks good. He was having a great summer. Everything was going well there and he hurt his hamstring running a deep post route one day in skills and drills and it really just set him back,” Swinney said. “It was bad timing for him. He was working his way back to full progression, obviously coming off the ACL last year.”
Stellato was ranked as the No. 160 overall player in the country for the class of 2021, according to the On3 Industry rankings. He has been unavailable for much of his Clemson career due to injuries, but Swinney is hopeful that is changing.
“He’s looked really good,” Swinney said. “For a guy that hasn’t played in two years and a guy that missed all of camp, he’s flashed, for sure. He could help us if he can just stay available.”