CHARLOTTE — When Stanford makes its long trek to play Clemson on Sept. 28 at Memorial Stadium, it is going to be as close to a homecoming as quarterback Ashton Daniels will get.
Daniels is from Buford, Ga., a small town north of Atlanta.
“It’s going to be a homecoming. All of my friends will be coming out,” he said. “Our coaches at Buford, they have a bye week that week, so my coaches will make the travel up. So, it is going to be pretty cool.”
Daniels is just one of a few players on the Cardinal roster that has ties to the South. He never thought in a million years when he chose to play for Stanford that he would ever get a chance to come back and play in front of his friends and family.
“It’s surreal,” he said. “I am from Georgia, so I grew up watching the ACC and the SEC. You would have never thought Stanford would be in the ACC.”
And he never thought he would get an opportunity to play in Clemson, which is just a two-and-a-half-hour drive from his hometown.
“Everybody knows football is different in the South,” Daniels said. “The atmospheres are completely different than any other Pac-12 team, maybe other than Oregon. They are going to pack those stadiums out. It is going to be loud and it’s going to be rowdy. That is what I know. I came from that.”
Daniels literally has come from Southern Football. His father, Juan Daniels, played football at Georgia from 1994-’96. His teammates were guys named Hines Ward and Kirby Smart.
“I was always going to Georga games, and I know what those crazy atmospheres are like,” he said. “I am prepared for it. I am definitely going to prepare the guys for it, especially with the humidity difference and being out on the West coast.”
As for playing in Death Valley, Ashton Daniels can’t wait to get inside and experience what that moment will be like.
“My dad, every time we bring up Clemson, he tells me the story about how he played there and watching the Clemson guys run down the hill, he told me how pumped up he got and how ready he was to go and play that game,” Daniels said. “I think I am going to have that same mindset going in.
“Clemson is one of the best college football atmospheres in the world and I am extremely excited to go and play there.”
Juan Daniels, who played wide receiver for the Bulldogs, played at Clemson in 1995, which was the 100-years of Clemson Football celebration game. Ward rallied the Bulldogs for a last-second victory over the Tigers.
“He talks about that game a lot,” the younger Daniels said. “I can’t wait to go there and experience it and I hope mine is just as fun of an experience as his was.”
Of course, Juan Daniels’ Georgia Bulldogs open the season against Clemson on Aug. 31 in Atlanta.
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