Clemson’s Ben Boulware on grabbing and poking opponents: ‘We’ve done it all year to mess with players’

Clemson defensive lineman Christian Wilkins has apologized for putting his hand somewhere it doesn’t belong during the Fiesta Bowl on Saturday, but comments by teammate Ben Boulware days later have all but guaranteed the controversy won’t go away anytime soon.

Following a run by Ohio State’s Curtis Samuel, Wilkins was caught on camera apparently grabbing the tailback’s rear end and possibly his groin area.

Naturally, there has been some public outcry about the incident. Boulware came to Wilkins’ defense on Wednesday, saying Clemson often employs such tactics to get into opposing players’ heads.

“We’ve done it all year to mess with players,” Boulware said. “No one has done it as aggressive as Christian did. We try to be more discreet about it. He grabbed a handful.”

Boulware added: “The game is so serious and locked in, and you do stuff to break up the seriousness of the game. People are trying to say [Wilkins committed] sexual assault, and people who say that have never played football, never been in a locker room, seen the weird stuff — we’re together every day for years, and you get very comfortable with each other.”

Back in November, Boulware was caught on camera poking South Carolina’s Zack Bailey in a similar manner.

“Zack Bailey didn’t care,” Boulware said Wednesday. “He’s like, ‘Do y’all practice that at Clemson?’ and I said, ‘No, we practice beating you by 49 points.’”

Wilkins apologized after the game Saturday and said he was “just being silly.”

“That’s just stuff you do when you’re competing. I know that’s not a good look or anything like that. but I do apologize for that,” Wilkins said.

“And I shook hands with [Samuel] after the game. There’s no hard feelings or anything like that, it was just in the heat of the moment.”

Clemson Coach Dabo Swinney said Wednesday that the act was Wilkins “just being goofy — you guys know Christian. He’s just a guy that can be a little silly at times.”

“But he shouldn’t have done it. He apologized for it, apologized to the kid, that’s really it. Not much to say about it.”

But Boulware had plenty to say about the situation.

“Christian went a little too far,” he said. “But I’ll mess with somebody, poke them in the bellybutton, grab someone’s butt. People freaking out about that have never played the game or they were losers with no friends when they played. It’s annoying it’s brought so much attention to it, trying to divert the attention that we beat them by 31 points.”

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii