Xavier Thomas couldn’t have picked a better time to announce his return to Clemson for a final season.
Thomas, the graduate senior defensive end out Florence, announced his intentions following the Tigers’ football banquet Saturday night, mere minutes after the Clemson basketball team blew a 23-point lead in a desultory home loss to Boston College.
The announcement took a small amount of heat off head basketball coach Brad Brownell and continued a wave of positive news for the football program in recent days. Head coach Dabo Swinney replaced the departed Todd Bates with Tiger great Nick Eason, and defensive end KJ Henry announced his intention to return for his final season.