Rock Hill-area coaches watch as 8 former players head into College Football Playoff
What do four football players on Clemson, two on Notre Dame, one on Alabama and one on Ohio State have in common with each other — beyond the fact that they’ll soon have a chance to compete on the biggest stage of college football?
They’ve all made proud their former coaches who work just south of the Carolinas border.
Will Boggs (Clemson), Quinn Castner (Clemson), Skylar Delong (Alabama), Derion Kendrick (Clemson), Nick McCloud (Notre Dame) and BT Potter (Clemson) all played football for York County public high schools just a handful of years ago. And Osita Ekwonu (Notre Dame) and Jacolbe Cowan (Ohio State) each played for Providence Day in Charlotte, under current Indian Land head coach Adam Hastings.
Before College Football Playoff semifinal games begin on New Year’s Day, here’s what you need to know about each player — and here are a few unforgettable stories about them from their former coaches, too.
BT Potter, Clemson
Potter hasn’t lost much in his football career. The junior placekicker went undefeated and won four straight state championships at South Pointe High School and has only lost twice in college — once in the national championship game in 2019, and once against Notre Dame earlier this year.
The Rock Hill native is a Lou Groza Semifinalist, known best for his flowy hair and his booming leg that has served him well on kickoffs and long-range field goals. He holds the record for longest field goal in a College Football National Championship Game, dating back to when he converted on a 52-yarder against LSU in January 2020.
“The first time I met BT, he was in ninth grade,” kicking guru Dan Orner told The Herald earlier this week. Orner laughed: “He came up to me, we went to the side field, and he was like, ‘Dan, if you can get me to hit my kickoffs inside the 10, I’ll be your best friend.’
“The next thing you know, at the end of his ninth grade year, he’s hitting balls into the endzone.”
Orner, who trains kickers in the Charlotte- and upstate South Carolina-areas, still works out with Potter regularly when he’s home, Orner said. And Potter clearly still has a spry sense of humor: A few days ago, Clemson football’s official Twitter account released a satirized video informercial about a not-real company, Will Swinney’s Laces Extermination Service, which exists to prevent field goal kickers from having to kick their field goals on the laces side of the football. (Yes, Potter is a proud spokesman.)
Derion Kendrick, Clemson DB
Kendrick, who is also a South Pointe alum and who joined Clemson at the same time as Potter, has also only lost two football games since 2013. The junior starting defensive back, who recovered a fumble and ran it back 66 yards for a touchdown against Virginia Tech a few weeks ago, was named a first-team All-ACC selection this season.
Out of high school, Kendrick was the No. 1 player in South Carolina and a top-10 wide receiver in the country per 247Sports, ESPN and Rivals. The S.C. Gatorade Player of the Year was a four-year starter and could play pretty much any position in high school — including quarterback, which he did for the Stallions.
For all that was made about his talent and toughness, former coach Strait Herron really only had stories about Kendrick’s “soft-hearted side” when interviewed earlier this week: Herron said Kendrick had a close relationship with his South Pointe coaches, including assistant Dexter Falls, who Kendrick lived with through most of high school. Herron also said Kendrick was protective and loving toward his younger brother and proud of his older friends who he considers family, including Nick McCloud, who played at South Pointe and is now at Notre Dame.
But there was one revealing, special thing about Kendrick that Herron didn’t notice until his stud player was almost gone.
“One night my wife said, ‘Strait, have you ever noticed that when you talk to the team, DK is front and center, right in front of you, and he is fixated on everything you say?’” Herron told The Herald. “And I said, ‘Nah, I never really noticed it, but I’ll pay attention to it.’ And sure enough, there were times when I’d be talking to the team with the whole team standing around me, and DK is right there, two feet from my face and looking me dead in the eye.”
The story came full circle recently: Two weeks ago, when watching Clemson play Notre Dame for the ACC Championship game on TV, Herron noticed something about his former player right before halftime and tapped his wife on the shoulder.
“Look at that,” Herron recalled saying to her. He then pointed at Kendrick, who was front-and-center and hanging on to every one of Clemson coach Dabo Swinney’s words.
“DK is that kind of a person,” Herron said.
Will Boggs, Clemson OL
Boggs, a freshman, is a preferred walk-on for the Tigers.
His senior year at York Comprehensive High School, Boggs was the South Carolina Offensive Lineman of the Year and a Shrine Bowl selection, but despite piling up impressive accolades, he didn’t receive a scholarship offer from anywhere he wanted to go.
The 5.2 GPA student who would arrive at the school early to lift weights with his father and York offensive line coach, John, even considered forgoing his college football prospects at one point, Boggs previously told The Herald.
Then Clemson called.
“All of my roads, wherever I went, they went back to Clemson for the major that I wanted,” Boggs, a civil engineering major, told The Herald in February, when he signed as a PWO to Clemson.
Earlier this week, York football coach Dean Boyd laughed when he talked about how he had to coach Will Boggs in a different way than he had most other kids because of the dynamic between Will and his coach/father.
“Coaches will play ‘good cop, bad cop,’ you know what I mean?” Boyd told The Herald. He then laughed: “Well, a lot of times, a lot of head coaches want to be the good cop, and the assistants are the bad cops. Well I’m kind of the opposite of that. I’m the bad cop. But I couldn’t really do that with Will and his dad.”
Boyd added that Boggs, who finished his senior year grading out at 88% with 41 knockdowns and one sack, wasn’t someone he often needed to “get on.”
“He’s going to do whatever he’s gotta do to try to make sure that he doesn’t let you down,” Boyd said.
Quinn Castner, Clemson K
Perhaps one of the first times Castner, a freshman walk-on kicker at Clemson, was introduced to the Clemson faithful was in a tweet featuring a story delivered by Clemson coach Dabo Swinney.
Swinney told the story about one of the first times he sent Castner out to kick a kickoff.
“He’s about 5-3, 80 pounds, maybe,” Swinney joked during the story. “I put him out there to give him a chance to kick one off. And listen, he ain’t kicked one deep in the endzone yet. … So I got my man Quinn out there, and what does he do? He kicked that sucker four yards deep in the endzone, and the whole team went crazy.”
Castner is larger than Swinney let on in the story, but the underlying lesson of the Nation Ford High School alum’s ambition and fearlessness is echoed by anyone who ever coached him.
Nation Ford coach Michael Allen — who saw Castner finish his senior year tied for second in the nation and first in South Carolina in field goal makes — said that Castner’s work ethic is the biggest reason why he’s at Clemson now.
“He just wouldn’t be denied,” Allen told The Herald.
Kicking coach Orner had similar things to say about Castner: “There’s not going to be many guys who say they lettered for Clemson, and he’s definitely contributed. And I think he pushes the guys ahead of him. He’s not the guy who pushes that button on your car cruise control; he’s the guy who’s pushing the gas every time, you know?”
As for Castner himself? He tweeted a response to Swinney’s story: “Relentless hard work and persistence can get you anywhere in life, no matter your situation,” he wrote. “I promise I’m bigger than 5’3, 80 lbs., though.”
Nick McCloud, Notre Dame CB
McCloud, another South Pointe alum, transferred from NC State this offseason to Notre Dame after suffering what could have been a career-ending knee injury. And he’s been vital to the Fighting Irish secondary this season: The cornerback has notched 29 tackles, eight pass deflections, an interception and a fumble recovery.
Back at South Pointe, McCloud was a multi-time state champion. Herron, his coach, remembers Nick for his maturity and thoughtfulness — both as a football player and person.
“I coached in a middle school all-star game, it’s called the Carolina Bowl, I wanna say in 2017. We were practicing at a private school in the Raleigh-Durham area,” Herron said. “And one day out of the blue, we were just finishing up practice, and here comes Nick walking out to the field that all the little kids are on. And I hadn’t talked to him. His dad had told him that I was up there, but he on his own came by...
“He spoke to the team for a couple minutes, encouraged them about doing well in school and staying out of trouble and all that good stuff. I just think that story kind of tells you about the kind of person he is.”
Herron added: “It was really neat to be surprised by one of your former players like that. And of course, the middle schoolers loved it.”
Osita Ekwonu, Notre Dame LB
Ekwonu, a sophomore linebacker, has seen the field in most games this season, including in the ACC Championship game two weeks ago.
That said, as a high schooler — he never came off the field.
Adam Hastings, who’s now at Indian Land but coached Ekwonu when he was at Providence Day in Charlotte, remembers when his big man asked if he could play running back for the team as a sophomore.
“So we put him at running back,” Hastings told The Herald earlier this week, “and I was like, ‘Woah, why have I not been playing him at running back all the time?’ … His senior year, we had some injuries, and he never came off the field. We played Charlotte Christian — that was our big rival — and I think he had like 18-20 tackles, 30 rushes for 200-some yards. For him, the more you gave him, the more he stepped up to the challenge.”
Hastings chuckles a bit when remembering how Ekwonu was as a recruit.
“He did zero self promotion,” Hastings said of Ekwonu, who is a quiet guy by nature. “Like, he didn’t have Twitter.”
Then, out of nowhere — one day after 20-something Division I coaches visited Providence Day during Ekwonu’s junior year — his recruitment stock blew up. He earned offers from Michigan and Penn State that day, but ultimately went with Notre Dame, the school he always “had his eye on,” Hastings said.
“He was just so humble, and he was thankful, and I think he realized that even with all the attention he was getting, he had to work to get better,” Hastings said. “I appreciate him so much because he set such a high bar for what to expect and what to demand out of yourself.”
Ekwonu’s twin brother, Ikem, is an offensive lineman for NC State.
Jacolbe Cowan, Ohio State DL
Cowan is a freshman defensive lineman for Ohio State. He, like Ekwonu, also played under Hastings at Providence Day — a rare Carolinian to play high-profile football in the Big Ten.
Hastings couldn’t say enough good things about Cowan earlier this week.
“I always feel like I want to be his biggest fan based on the type of person he is and the type of player he is,” Hastings said.
Cowan, a high-level basketball player before emerging as a football star, started throughout his four years at Providence Day. He played tight end, outside linebacker and defensive line, Hastings said.
“I always turn on Ohio State games, and I record them to go back to see if he got in, if he played, where he is at on the sidelines,” Hastings said and laughed. “Just to see him there, it warms my heart so much because you know how hard he’s worked. And to just have this feeling of, ‘I had a part to play in his story, to me, it just makes coaching worth it.’”
Skylar Delong, Alabama P
Delong, a 6-4, 188-pound junior, hasn’t seen any action for the Crimson Tide this season. But he saw a lot as a sophomore and freshman.
Delong was one of the top punter recruits nationally coming out of high school, and he earned a scholarship to Alabama, a rarity among kicking specialists. Back in Fort Mill, at Nation Ford High School, he did everything — kicked, punted and handled kickoff responsibilities.
Orner, who still works with Delong, said that the junior at Alabama would “give the shirt off his back” to a stranger if asked, and that he developed a very strong work ethic with two other up-and-coming kicking prospects when he was in high school — with Potter and Wake Forest kicker Nick Sciba.
“Because him, Sciba and BT were so close, they would go out two to three times a week together during the summer time and kick and push each other,” Orner said. “But the thing that has been awesome with Skyler was any time I had any of my NFL guys in… Skyler would come and sit and listen, ever since he was in ninth or tenth grade. And I was really trying to groom him to be the next great NFL draft-able punter. And I still think once he’s healthy, he has those characteristics.”
Coach Allen of Nation Ford remembers a story back in 2017, when Delong shook off nerves and nailed a 46-yard, game-winning field goal to give the Falcons their first-ever win over Northwestern High School.
“The way he hit it,” Allen said, “it could’ve been good from 60.”
This story was originally published December 31, 2020 at 10:34 AM.
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