The junior year for any player, big name or not, in college football is the money year. It's usually where most players are able to separate themselves in terms of leaders within their programs and prospects for the NFL Draft. Will Shipley has been a hot topic ever since he set foot on campus due to his 5-star ranking out of his high school and the immediate role he received within the offense since his freshman year.
The running back is coming off of a productive sophomore campaign where he rushed for 1,182 yards and 15 touchdowns to go along with another 242 yards receiving as well. With those numbers at a high-profile program like Clemson one might wonder why Shipley's name isn't mentioned more often with the best of the best players coming back next season. Pro Football Focus doesn't have Will amongst their top 10 returning running backs, much less among their top offensive players overall. Some of that may be due to not quite living up to the massive hype he had coming in, while also dealing with injuries, but most likely it's because the offense around him hasn't shined enough to allow its best players to flourish. So now that he has more at stake personally this season what are his thoughts?
"It's been a ton of fun to just be able to get out there and learn with Coach Riley and Cade Klubnik", Shipley said. "Just being able to help out and build chemistry has been awesome. Being able to fine-tune my own game, I'm always trying to get better. I know that I am never going to hit my ceiling. I am just fine-tuning and trying to get my game as best as it can be as well...We've already seen me become more of a receiver thus far in spring. I'm excited to see how it expands from here as we learn the offense and grow."
Sounds like a promising outlook so far but obviously there has to be an individual improvement as well. Shipley clearly explains he's not shying away from the things he needs to improve on either, "Patience with gap schemes, inside zones, I have a really good tempo. But once you get to gap schemes, I tend to speed it up a little too much. I don't give the guards and tackles enough time to pool and don't set up the blocks as much as I could. I've really been working on that and then just knocking in some of those long runs. I have to pick it up. I have to put some of those in. There are 6-7 I could have put in last year, no doubt. Those are two things I want to improve."
Fall will reveal all as far as how the ceiling for Will Shipley really is, but if the early spring is any indication, it looks as if the nation may have a serious all-purpose threat to watch out for.
More must-reads: