KJ Henry leads young defense, dances, eats Krispy Kreme

KJ Henry reacts to a play against Wake Forest.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Sun Sep 25 10:58:42 GMT-04:00 2022

WINSTON-SALEM, NC – Clemson defensive end KJ Henry walked out of the Clemson locker room late Saturday afternoon holding a box of Krispy Kreme donuts and promptly offered them to members of the media waiting for interviews. Henry, selfless and generous, has turned into the no-doubt leader and voice of a defense that needs leadership more than ever.

That defense was thrown at, thrown over, penalized, and gashed for 337 passing yards and six touchdowns by Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman Saturday in the Tigers’ 51-45 victory over the Demon Deacons.

But during the late stages of the game, when the Tigers trailed and when Wake had the chance to win the game, Henry was seen talking to every position group. Pushing and prodding, trying to build confidence, asking them for enough to get out of Winston-Salem with a win. At the end, he was happy to be eating Krispy Kreme in honor of the win.

“That just means we won the game. That was the most emotional game I’ve played versus Wake Forest in my entire career man,” Henry told TigerNet. “There's going to be so much criticism, but there was so much love in that locker room after that game for how hard we fought. That's a great Wake Forest team. It's a hard, ranked road win. It was far from pretty but we got the W, and we are 4-0. I know that's the best you can be after four games, so we'll learn from this. But definitely happy to get the win.”

Henry said the game took a toll on him, both emotionally and physically.

“That's what the game is all about, just the ups and downs and being able to handle them,” Henry said. “There were a lot of downs for the defense at that point, but we were granted another opportunity and the best we can do is win that opportunity, which we did in the end. I knew that I had to be one of the sparks for this defense and a lot of the other guys did a great job rallying together and making sure we finished the game. We have a team that's going to fight to the end no matter how good or bad it is and that's exactly what we did. I was really proud of those guys.”

Henry said the mentality in overtime was put the bad plays in the rear view mirror and concentrate on winning the game.

“The mentality is that everything is behind us, and there is nothing we can do about it,” he said. “We're presented with the opportunity now we have to go make the best of it. It's that simple. We can sulk on the past, but once again, there's nothing we could do to change that, so we get to the point where the game is on the line; it's a whole new set of downs, a whole new shot clock, you know what I'm saying? Let's go hit the game-winner, that's all it's about.”

Henry said he had a special message for the young cornerbacks who struggled, and he went over and made sure they knew he still believed in them.

“Just simply not quitting. In this day and age of college football now, it's so easy just to quit. You have guys who are 18, 19, and they were playing high school football last year,” Henry said. “And now they are in the stands with a crowd of 30,000-plus rooting against them, hoping they make all the mistakes in the world I just kept telling them, look, you are on this team for a reason and you have this opportunity for a reason. Believe in yourself. No matter what happens. No matter how many flags you get, how many touchdowns they get, I am not going to stop believing in you. But really keep boosting that faith and letting them know to keep competing and we'll see what happens.”

Henry not only ate Krispy Kreme, he danced. Joyfully.

“I danced my tail off. I went in and told them to crank the music up. Like I said, I can feel all of the negative media responses on the sideline. I didn't even need my phone,” he said. “But I don't care. We won the game and we are going to get better from it. That is what I want these guys to understand. We are going to learn a lot of lessons this week, but it doesn't have to be from a loss. We have to have that same intensity as if we did lose, but we didn't. We found a way to finish at the very end. The DB's made a game-winning play and I was glad to see that out of them.”