Jaguars RB Travis Etienne is Trevor Lawrence's safety blanket

Being a rookie in the NFL is hard. Lucky for Travis Etienne, he has a familiar face experiencing it all with him. The Clemson product is going through his first training camp, and NFL season, alongside his old backfield mate, 2021 first-overall pick Trevor Lawrence.

The Jaguars made waves on draft night selecting Etienne with the 25th overall pick to join his old teammate, taken 24 picks earlier. After the draft, Meyer stated that Etienne’s dual-threat ability as a reason why they picked him.

Through rookie minicamp and training camp, Etienne has taken reps at both running back and wide receiver. So far, there’s been a lot of positivity surrounding Etienne and his performance in camp.

NFL Network’s Maurice Jones-Drew said the team is “really excited” about Etienne’s potential as an all-around playmaker. Speaking with Jones-Drew on Inside Training Camp Live, Etienne detailed how transitioning into the league alongside Lawrence has been beneficial, saying it has provided him a “sense of normalcy” and their digestion of the Jaguars playbook has been sped up by learning it together.

“When Trev’s out there, I kind of feel like the ball is coming to me because he’s not used to everything yet,” Etienne told Jones-Drew. “So, he’s still trying to figure out everything and he has a sense of normalcy with me. So he definitely finds me in the check down position. … He kind of uses me as a safety blanket.”

Clemson connection

Etienne spent four total seasons at Clemson, but he and Lawrence shared the backfield at Clemson for the majority of the last three seasons. Together, the duo made two national championship appearances, won a national championship Lawrence’s freshman season and three straight ACC championships.

In his Clemson career, Etienne had 6,107 yards from scrimmage and 78 touchdowns. His best season came in 2019, where he had 1614 rushing yards, 432 receiving yards and 23 total touchdowns. Etienne considered declaring for the NFL after his junior season, but opted to return to cement his name among collegiate all-time greats.

Etienne holds a number of ACC and NCAA records. He’s the NCAA FBS record holder for most career games scoring a touchdown. The ACC career record-holder for rushing yards (4,952), total touchdowns (78), rushing touchdowns (70) and points (468). He finished with the second-most all-purpose yards in ACC history. Etienne is one of only 12 players in FBS history with 4,000 career rushing yards and 1,000 career receiving yards, and his 4,952 rushing yards finished as the second-most by any 1,000-yard career receiver in FBS history. He is the only running back since 2000 to average at least 7.0 yards on 100+ carries in three different seasons.