FanPost

When Clemson needed him most, Cornell Powell stepped up

Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports

From the FanPosts — JD

Like most college football fans, I circled November 7 on my calendar as soon as the schedule came out.

Trevor Lawrence — the presumed No. 1 pick since his freshman season — would be leading the Clemson Tigers to South Bend to face Notre Dame. In a year without many of the usual high-profile matchups, a game featuring two teams that were widely expected to be in the four-team college football playoff had "Game of the Year" written all over it.

But then on October 29, Clemson announced that Lawrence had tested positive for COVID-19. He was certain to miss that weekend’s game against Boston College — and, unfortunately, the highly anticipated primetime game against the Fighting Irish.

So for most of the first quarter, the game looked like it was going to be as far from "Game of the Year" as you could get.

After Irish running back Kyren Williams busted a 65-yard touchdown run, Clemson's true freshman quarterback DJ Uiagalelei managed only nine yards passing on his first drive. The Tigers punted after four plays. After an Irish field goal extended their lead to 10-0, the narrative quickly changed: Uiagalelei would be in too far over his head to even keep an elite Tigers team in the game.

But on the next possession — following 10 hard-fought yards to start the drive — Uiagalelei found the Kansas City Chiefs' eventual fifth-round pick Cornell Powell for this gem:

Once again, it was a "Game of the Year."

It would be an understatement to say that at the time, Powell was an unknown. Most casual Clemson fans had long since forgotten that he had been a four-star recruit from a prestigious North Carolina high school football program, ranked by some sources as the state's fourth-best recruit.

A longstanding NFL Draft cliché says that a Day 3 pick likely didn’t produce in college because of the talent in front of them. For Powell, that might be more true than it is for most players — who don’t dress as freshmen on a team with a player like Mike Williams and Hunter Renfrow. Most players aren't teammates with Cincinnati Bengals second-round pick Tee Higgins and likely 2022 first-round pick Justyn Ross — each of whom has accrued monstrous stats in their Clemson careers. And this is not to mention the targets going to the 2021 draft's 25th overall pick — running back Travis Etienne — and to the Green Bay Packers' third-round pick Amari Rogers.

After years of yielding the spotlight to players like these, Powell was a forgotten man.

The week before, Uiagalelei and Clemson had been in a deep hole against Boston College. Etienne's goal-line fumble had been returned 97 yards for a defensive touchdown — and the Clemson team was facing a 21-7 deficit. Coach Dabo Swinney decided that his inexperienced quarterback's best chance of success would be with his most experienced receiver: Powell.

As a fifth-year senior, Powell had been at Clemson long enough that he had actually caught a handful of passes from Deshaun Watson in 2016. He had redshirted in the middle of his college career because the talent around him left no room for playing time.

So against the Eagles — when a national title contender faced disaster — a receiver who had accumulated fewer than 500 career yards over parts of five seasons went to work, running high percentage, possession routes to help his young quarterback. Powell had a then-career day, bringing in 11 passes for 105 yards — and helping his team come back for a 34-28 victory to keep their national title hopes alive.

So a week later, Powell and his rookie quarterback went toe-to-toe with the Irish for the rest of the game — although Clemson finally fell 47-40 in double overtime. Powell bettered his one-week-old career-yardage high, catching six passes for 161 yards. And despite missing their generational quarterback for two crucial games, Powell’s mastery of Swinney’s offense helped the Tigers stay in the playoff picture.

When Lawrence returned for the game against Pittsburgh, Powell continued to shine. For the third week in a row, he broke his career yardage mark with six catches for 176 yards. For the rest of the season, Powell’s worst game was four catches for 59 yards in the rematch against Notre Dame in the ACC Championship (Because only the Irish can somehow be independent and still compete for a conference championship, right?)

Clemson’s season came to an end in the first round of the college football playoff against Ohio State, but Powell played one of his best games, ending his college career by catching eight passes for 139 yards and two touchdowns. Against Buckeyes cornerback Shaun Wade — who had entered the year expected to be a first-round pick — Powell owned the matchup, ending a long, strange college career in a dominant fashion.

When the Chiefs drafted Powell, the first number that jumped out was his 93 career catches for 1211 yards over five seasons. So there will be a tendency to paint Powell as raw — just like Demarcus Robinson was when Kansas City drafted him in 2016. In fact, Robinson had better career numbers in his three seasons at Florida than Powell had in more than four at Clemson.

But down the stretch — when his team needed him — Powell looked anything but raw.

Powell had chances to transfer. Whether it is better for a player to switch to a less competitive environment and put up stats against lesser competition — versus honoring one’s commitment and maximizing time spent with one of the college football's best staffs — is an interesting question. But Swinney commended Powell for staying.

"He wanted to be coached," he said of Powell as his pro day. "He had to learn how to compete at this level and really play full speed all the time. It was awesome."

Since there aren't many examples of a trajectory like Powell's, it is very hard to predict what kind of player the Chiefs are getting; almost every player in his situation would have transferred for the sake of better counting stats. But many of the measurable traits that made him a highly-touted prospect out of high school — including his Relative Athletic Score of 7.58 — are still there.

It is hard to look at his tape and not see former Chief (and Clemson Tiger) Sammy Watkins. And why not? The same staff that recruited Watkins would be interested in a player with Powell’s height and speed combination. But Powell will almost certainly never be as dangerous as a healthy Watkins has been. While his catch against the Irish is my favorite Powell play, it is not exactly a repeatable route in the NFL.

As a redshirt senior, Powell played frequently on special teams. He should be expected to take a roster spot from Marcus Kemp in 2021. Even if he never becomes the starting X receiver, being a special teams player who can line up and run possession routes and catch 12 to 20 passes a year is good value for the end of the fifth round.

Powell will turn 24 as a rookie — older than Mecole Hardman — so It would be fair to wonder how much development is possible. While I think expecting Powell to be more than a rotational player or a borderline NFL starter is a bit much, he should be able to do many of the little things that help football teams win games. "Valuable role player" is probably the most realistic expectation.

Just the same... when a national championship-winning college coach needed Powell to step up, he was able to do so. I have no doubt he is already doing everything he can to be ready for when a Super Bowl-winning coach needs the same from him.

I admire Powell for not taking the easier road — and I am pulling for his success.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Arrowhead Pride's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Arrowhead Pride writers or editors.