Quacking the Roster: TE Transfer Markus Dixon

Dixon was recruited to Clemson in the 2023 cycle as a high 3-star (.8778) in the 24/7 composite. Dixon prepped at Philadelphia’s powerhouse Archbishop Wood and was a multiple sport star athlete, playing both ways in football including safety and defensive end as well as wide receiver, tight end, and in one game even the quarterback.

After redshirting in 2023, Dixon appeared in ten games in 2024 – six of them on offense as a developmental tight end late in games, and four more on special teams only.

In 2025 Dixon switched to the defense and appeared in three games as a developmental defensive end. In early January of this year Dixon entered the transfer portal, and two weeks later committed to Oregon with two years of eligibility to play two remaining. He was listed on the Ducks’ March 31st roster update as a tight end.

When Dixon arrived at Clemson in 2023, the Tigers had just sent tight end Davis Allen to the NFL. Clemson returned the already established new starting TE Jake Briningstool, who would also eventually go on to the NFL after 2024, as well as their main blocking TE Sage Ennis, but the other rotational and backup tight ends had graduated.

Clemson took two TEs preps in the 2023 cycle, the second besides Dixon being low 4-star (.8918) #11 TE Patt-Henry. They had one 2022 mid 3-star (.8467) #5 TE Sapp on board, but he redshirted without playing in 2022, and the TIgers also added in 2024 a mid 4-star (.9640) #87 TE Bentancur. Clemson used the 2023 and 2024 seasons, with Briningstool as the reliable starter, to work through these four developmental TEs — Dixon, Patt-Henry, Sapp, and Bentancur — and discover their replacement solution to set themselves up for 2025.

In the 2023 season, Dixon redshirted and essentially didn’t play at all. Sapp as a redshirt freshman got the meaningful rotational play alongside Briningstool and Ennis, with Patt-Henry coming in during garbage time. Ennis tore his ACL and his season came to an unfortunate end against Georgia Tech; as a response Patt-Henry’s playing time was extended into meaningful play in the last three games of the season and Sapp became the second TE along with a senior walk-on for some situational blocking reps, but Dixon didn’t come off the bench.

Ennis transferred to Virginia for the 2024 season, but everyone else in the 2023 TE unit returned and Bentancur joined from the prep ranks. Briningstool remained the starter, though the staff made a move by flipping the backups – the true sophomore Patt-Henry became the “new Ennis”, taking over the main blocking and occasional receiving role in their frequently 12-personnel offense, while the redshirt sophomore Sapp stayed a rotational player.

Dixon as a redshirt freshman in 2024 began getting developmental play during garbage time in Clemson’s six blowout wins. The Tigers had two sets of garbage time developmental players on the offense, with the first group being a mix of rotational players from meaningful time and primary backups at positions that don’t typically rotate (i.e., QB and OL) – this group included Patt-Henry and Sapp. It wasn’t until they were done that the second developmental unit took over deep into garbage time; this was the group that had Dixon and the true freshman Bentancur. Including the FCS game, the first developmental group had 50 garbage time reps prior to the second group’s entrance during the 2024 season; Dixon got a total of 29 garbage time reps.

In 2025, Briningstool was off to the NFL, and Clemson promoted Patt-Henry and Bentancur as their main TEs and kept Sapp as a heavily used rotational TE. They recruited borderline 4-star (.8869) prep #7 TE Brooking and gave him some developmental play, while head coach Swinney went ahead with his long-held dream of converting the school’s basketball forward into a rotational tight end, #18 TE Schiefflen.

The Tigers switched Dixon to a defensive end in 2025. There were far fewer garbage time opportunities as Clemson had a rough 7-6 season, starting out 2-3 with the two wins being an uncomfortably close one over Troy and what should have been a blowout over North Carolina spoiled by a late Tar Heel touchdown and a some 4^th quarter offensive failures that kept the Tigers’ starters in to the end.

So Dixon didn’t get a chance for any developmental time until week 7 against Boston College, and then he had the rest of the FBS regular season off as it was two more losses and three close wins, though he did get in a few snaps against the FCS opponent in week 13. A large number of portal departures resulted in Dixon’s first meaningful play of his career in the bowl game against Penn State, though these were only four 2^nd quarter plays as they settled on some other DEs for the rest of the game. This added up to 12 total reps in the 2025 season (Clemson’s statbook seems to have counted a false start that Dixon was on the field for as Dixon’s 13^th).

I have the complete Clemson seasons and all-22 tape from each of these years in my film library, which I reviewed for this history. By their nature, garbage time reps are inappropriate for statistical comparison and there are too few of them for Dixon to perform a cohort analysis. For this article I’ve simply included every one of Dixon’s reps at Clemson and clustered them for discussion, with the exception of a small handful which aren’t useful at all (these are basically all perimeter screens to the other side of the field from Dixon, on offense he was split out and released into the passing pattern as a decoy but had no one to block, on defense the ball was gone before he could touch anyone).

Here’s Dixon run blocking on the frontside of the play:

(Reminder – you can use the button in the right corner to control playback speed)

1. :00 – Dixon is in jersey #84, as in all plays both years, on the LT’s hip (touching the tackle like this for spacing was coached at Clemson, I observed all TEs and H-backs doing it). It’s a designed cutback run, the NCSU end has made Dixon’s job easy by turning perpendicular to the line though the backup LT has forgotten which backer to block. Dixon contains the end well enough but could prevent that spin out at the end by driving his legs to turn him and repositioning his grip.
2. :13 – Dixon slices underneath to lead block on the boundary OLB, who knows the hit is coming. Dixon’s initial contact is good and the lane is open (the run fails because of a bad WR block on the safety), but Dixon could improve his control on the OLB by keeping his feet moving to put his frame in the way of that spin out.
3. :20 – The RB hesitates because the center falls down, and goes through the C-gap Dixon creates, but Dixon doesn’t really have control on his backer … he goes into contact unbalanced and with the wrong shoulder forward in order to turn him away from the gap, so the backer just bounces off and makes the tackle.
4. :28 – Dixon climbs directly to the LB at the second level and turns him away from the play. The defense is a little unset from pointing at the LT’s flinch, calling for a false start flag. Good contact and turn, not full control but when the LB goes after the back Dixon stays in contact to keep him off.
5. :43 – (The broadcast mangled this play so I’m using the all-22 sideline angle, it immediately follows the last clip, 2^nd & 1.) Dixon and the RB both sell a little counter step on this gap scheme, Dixon’s block on the backer is a little shaky but he regains control and it’s enough for the conversion, despite the C and slot WR doing poor jobs which limit the gain.

And here’s Dixon run blocking on the backside of the play:

1. :00 – Dixon has the backside kickout of the end after slicing under the formation. He gets tripped up on the LT’s foot but is eager to make the block anyway with an unsound base. There’s no reason to, he should just set up and let the end come to him, there’s nothing to create here and getting thrown around doesn’t help (I have no idea how this run got through the other side, the blocking is a mess, but the defense is too. Not relevant to Dixon but amusing.)
2. :15 – This gap scheme goes wide because the LT and LG don’t remember their assignments. Dixon is on the other side of the play on the OLB and is doing fine, though he could avoid being taken around in a circle like this if he gained depth instead of lunging forward and established a solid base prior to contact.
3. :30 – NCSU is crowding the line in short yardage, Dixon is up against what’s normally an off-ball backer. The defender gets inside hands on Dixon’s chestplate which means he can eventually work around and defeat the block, but since it’s on the backside of the play it winds up not really affecting it.
4. :44 – This play fails because the frontside blocks are getting no push at all; Dixon’s responsibility is the backside LB who’s crashing in. He makes good initial contact but is getting rocked back from his momentum and can’t control to turn him away, so the backer is able to disengage and pursue the play … although it’s already dead.
5. :52 – The C and RG have the wrong assignments here after a DL shift, causing the back to check into a different lane that an unblocked LB controls. That’s the frontside and why the play failed; Dixon and the LT are having a great time on the backside on a chip & up to the overhang backer.

These were plays that were difficult to categorize because of assignment errors:

1. :00 – The starters used this zone run when backed up against their goalline vs Georgia the previous week. The RT properly climbs to the inside backer, the slicing TE (here the true freshman Bentancur) is meant to take out the defensive end, and Dixon is supposed to block the STAR coming in from the fieldside. But Dixon gets confused and turns to hit Bentancur’s DE, leaving the STAR unblocked who makes the tackle.
2. :13 – Clemson is in 12-pers here, with Dixon as the in-line TE next to the RT. The two of them double up on the DE, but that’s not Dixon’s assignment, he’s meant to block the OLB on his side while the H-back slices under to hit the OLB on the other side where the QB’s eyes are. Another defender gets into the backfield because of a plain lousy block from the LG, but Dixon’s OLB is free because of the missed assignment.
3. :19 – There’s confusion between Dixon and the RB as to who is meant to pick up the blitzing OLB and who picks up the green dog ILB. Based on watching Clemson’s previous blitz pickups with the starters, the RB is correct and Dixon should have the OLB, though regardless it’s the hesitation that’s lethal since Dixon is in the RB’s way and if he just went right for the ILB the RB could have flipped and gotten the other guy. This was effectively Dixon’s last developmental rep as a tight end, Bentacur and the other young TEs played out the last 11 minutes of this game.

Here are the plays in which Dixon was blocking in pass protection or split out:

1. :00 – Dixon is motioned in from the sideline and blocks the OLB as instructed, though it’s a brief block because the whole point of the motion was to read the zone defense presnap and set up this quick RPO throw (although, it’s the wrong throw, it should be a fieldside hitch, but that’s not in the pattern … Garrett Riley’s offense was weird.)
2. :16 – Dixon is split out wide in double stacks to the offense’s right on this RPO (which the backup QB misreads, he shouldn’t have handed off). Regardless of the QB’s choice, Dixon’s assignment would just be to seal off the DB over him, and he does a good job getting inside leverage at first, but he loses control over the smaller defender quickly. If the LB hadn’t gotten there first, that DB could have limited the run or drawn a holding flag.
3. :28 – On this QB draw Dixon is the Y receiver split out on the right, and he’s selling the initial deception that it’s a passing play by turning and looking for the ball, then quickly turning again to block the run. Good work here.
4. :44 – I spent a while trying to figure out if there was something about Dixon’s block which threw off the timing of this play, but concluded no, he’s fine, it’s the timing of the play itself into the boundary. The QB should have mirrored it, put the RB on his other side and read the nickel for slant route vs the handoff.

These four plays were difficult to assess because I think a major offensive line error from the backup unit interfered with Dixon doing his job:

1. :00 – Dixon gets leverage and is blocking the STAR, fairly well to start out but we don’t get to see him finish because the utter clownshow behind him causes his ankles to get rolled up; thankfully no one gets hurt.
2. :16 – The initial broadcast shot cut it off, but when I watched the skycam tape it showed Dixon getting instruction from the LT to block the MIKE in NCSU’s 33 defense, which he does … but that’s wrong, this was Clemson’s base inside run play and the starters used it dozens of times. Dixon’s block is the SAM, the LG and RG have the MIKE and the WILL. It’s the unblocked SAM who makes the tackle but I don’t think this should be held against Dixon.
3. :38 – Here’s the counter step again to throw the defense, but Dixon and the LG are pulling this time. The LG’s assignment is to kick out the nickel since he’s going first, Dixon’s job is to either block out the DE if he’d stayed wide or get outside of him and seal him in if he’d pinched. The LG mistakenly takes Dixon’s DE (and doesn’t even contain him) and the unblocked nickel makes the tackle.
4. :50 – I must have spent 20 minutes trying to figure this play out. My best guess is that it’s an RPO and Dixon is supposed to be bluffing the LB who comes around, but Sapp is losing so badly that Dixon stops to try and help. Though even that’s an unsatisfying explanation, the design shouldn’t have a TE trying to scoop out a DE from the outside.

Dixon had no catches at Clemson and was never targeted. There were two plays in which he released into the pattern and the QB looked to his side of the field, on one he was being used to manipulate the zone defense for another receiver’s benefit and wasn’t really a viable target, though he did his job properly, the other he might (arguably should) have been targeted on but wasn’t. Here are both:

1. :00 – This 3^rd & long play is designed to beat zone coverage with the 10-yd in-route to the Z-receiver. It widens the throwing lane in two ways: the slot WR’s orbit motion pulls the CB wide, and Dixon’s crosser draws the LB down into physical contact. Dixon does his job making himself a tempting and shallow target for that contact so the QB has a clear lane, he should pull the trigger with anticipation but doesn’t, instead checking down uselessly.
2. :16 – The defense brings a blitz and the QB has a double slant pattern to answer, the Z receiver outside and Dixon inside. He goes outside, it’s behind the receiver so an easy tackle regardless, but the inside throw to Dixon would have been quicker with no defender in the lane, and as presumably a bigger target Dixon would have been better situated to convert. At the very least we might have finally seen what his hands are like.

In 2025 as a defensive end, due to the game situations when Dixon was put in, almost all of his run defense reps came against the FCS opponent and pass defense reps came against Penn St, with one useul play apiece at the very end of the BC game.

Here are Dixon’s run defense reps:

1. :00 – The outside TE is blocking Dixon one-handed for some reason, Dixon gets off it after setting the edge against a possible outside run. This was the last play of the game and they might have just been letting time run off.
2. :15 – The offense is unbalanced to the boundary but Clemson isn’t biting. The backside DE is unblocked and surprises everybody by running down the RB from behind; Dixon seems like he’s done a good job getting off the RT’s block to the inside to get a hand on the RB but it’s hard to tell if Dixon grabbed him in time or well enough to bring him down because the other DE has already snatched the RB up.
3. :27 – This looks like the RB cuts to the A-gap because the LB has beaten the pulling LG to the hole, so it’s hard to assess Dixon since his lane gets smushed and the RB runs away from him. But the TE blocking him doesn’t look like he’s turning him away with full control at least.
4. :48 – This weakside run is away from Dixon, who’s over the two TEs to the strongside. It is pretty entertaining though, Dixon’s bullying an undersized TE and pushing him over the LB that the other TE let through.
5. 1:03 – The RG pulls around and has Dixon fully under control, gaining outside leverage on him and turning him from the play completely. This should have been enough for a big play but the LT doesn’t know which LB to block and all three perimeter blocks are hitting the wrong guy for man coverage (the X is supposed to peel the chasing DB, the TE would then have that unblocked box safety who makes the tackle).

And Dixon’s pass defense reps:

1. :00 – The LT effectively escorts Dixon out the back, he’s not able to bend under the blocker. The QB is more spooked by the DE on the right side, takes off through the space Dixon has vacated, and the LG makes the sack.
2. :17 – As part of PSU’s absolutely baffling collapse from the top perch in quality OL play, this stupid slide against the blitz lets a backer past the LT and leaves a massive middle rush lane open even though they have a numbers advantage. Dixon is initially bullrushing the TE pretty well but then the RB gets involved and everybody trips, not an easy rep to assess.
3. :42 – The defense was still getting the signal in on this quick snap. Dixon gets set in a hurry, and it’s a slide while the QB does a play-action mini roll so he winds up attacking the center. Dixon starts to penetrate past the center’s outside shoulder which I was intrigued to see, but then it all got cut short when the left side of the protection forgot how to play football and the QB immediately got rid of the ball on a checkdown.
4. 1:07 – This turned out to be Dixon’s final play with Clemson; the other DE on this rep, a redshirt senior and four-year backup, wound up getting the rest of the snaps in the bowl game. Both of them get smashed inside by TEs on their way out as they release into the pattern, though they handle it differently – on the offense’s left side the DE maintains his balance, recovers, beats the LT and threatens the QB; on the right Dixon doesn’t.