Tee Higgins won a national championship in the 2018 season, his sophomore season at Clemson. In what is his sophomore season in the NFL, the former First Team All-ACC selection will try to help the Bengals win their first Super Bowl.
In the 27-24 overtime victory over Kansas City, Higgins had six catches for 103 yards as he helped the Bengals rally from a 21-3 deficit.
A second-round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, Higgins is second on the Bengals with 74 catches for 1,091 yards and six touchdowns.
Cincinnati offensive lineman Jackson Carman is a native of Fairfield, Ohio which is about a half hour’s drive from Cincinatti. After a stellar career at Clemson where he won a national championship as a freshman and was named a CBS Sports All-American as a junior, Carman was a second-round draft pick by the Bengals in the 2021 NFL Draft. So after helping Clemson win a national championship as a freshman, Carman will try to win a Super Bowl in his rookie season of the NFL.
D.J. Reader was a defensive lineman for Dabo Swinney and a pitcher for Jack Leggett. He has been in the NFL for seasons, the last two with the Bengals after spending his first four seasons with the Houston Texans.
Reader will be the first former Clemson baseball play in the Super Bowl since Dexter McCleon who went 1-1 in the Super Bowl as a defensive back for the St. Louis Rams.
Former South Carolina kicker Elliott Fry, who wrapped up his Carolina career in 2017, has been on the practice squads of a number of NFL teams and he’s seen action with the Bears and Chiefs. He was signed to the Bengals practice squad in early January and he’s currently on the practice squad/injured list.
A former Clemson assistant coach is in his first season with the Bengals. Marion Hobby, who coached the Clemson defensive ends in 2005 and again from 2011-2016, is working with the Cincinnati defensive line.
After the Tigers’ national championship season of 2016, Hobby left Clemson and returned to the NFL. A former assistant in New Orleans, Hobby’s latest run in the NFL has taken him to Jacksonville, Miami and now, Cincinnati.