Former Myrtle Beach football standout Spencer Benton will vie for the vacant starting kicker position at Clemson as a scholarship athlete, according to a report.
The State writer Paul Strelow, the paper's Clemson beat writer, wrote in a blog entry yesterday that Tigers coach Dabo Swinney plans to place Benton on scholarship. Benton enrolled at Clemson last January after injuries marred his senior year of 2007.
The Tigers haven't been able to attract a large recruiting class, but Swinney said that was partly because he wanted to put walk-on players like Benton on scholarship. Strelow writes that a now-healthy Benton is his early favorite to earn the starting nod at kicker, although punter Dawson Zimmerman will have a say in the competition.
