During steamy Florida summers, a 2-year-old Carter accompanied his father to the practice field with a toddler-sized water jug, silently mimicking footwork drills until he was sent to the car for some well-deserved air conditioning.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad taught me everything that I know,\u201d Carter III said in a March interview. \u201cJust watching him helped me be the man that I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n
As time went on, the father-son duo bonded over the intricacies of tackling mechanics, watching old Florida State film and the importance of hard work. Carter II coached several of his son\u2019s teams but switched to a spectator when he reached high school, helping Carter III break out of his own last name\u2019s shadow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could see that he was kind of elite because once I retired from the NFL and stuff, I coached a few of his teams,\u201d Carter said. \u201cWhatever I needed, he could do it. Whatever position that I was hurting for, like, if I didn’t have a quarterback, I could put him at quarterback. Of course he played safety, but if we didn\u2019t have a running back, I could put him at running back.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2024, Carter II experienced a \u201cbreathtaking\u201d moment, fueled by d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu and pride, when his son trotted out to play his first college football game for the Old Dominion Monarchs. In two seasons, the safety made 12 starts, notching 98 tackles.<\/p>\n
As a sophomore, he had six interceptions, the second-most of any college football player.<\/p>\n
With that success, Carter III entered the transfer portal three days before Christmas, and while holiday decorations were still intact, he and his father made the trip to visit Clemson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just wanted my son to be in a good situation, the best fit for him,\u201d Carter II said. \u201cOf course, we were in agreement with Clemson; it gave me that Florida State vibe, so to speak, with the camaraderie and culture-wise and togetherness. I told him, \u2018That’s a great stadium, a loud stadium.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, 23 years after his first win over Florida State as a wide receivers coach and 17 years after getting the head job, Swinney has passed Bobby Bowden for first place in total ACC victories (187), though Bowden still boasts three more conference championships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During steamy Florida summers, a 2-year-old Carter accompanied his father to the practice field with a toddler-sized water…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[17066,143,1320,128299,232,234,233,9903],"class_list":["post-307142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-clemson","tag-college-football","tag-florida-state","tag-jerome-carter-iii","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-tigers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}