Both head coach Dabo Swinney and offensive coordinator Tony Elliott said they saw some good things from the Clemson offense in Saturday’s scrimmage at the Poe Indoor Practice Facility in Clemson, but they also saw a lot of inconsistency.
They were unable to finish drives, mostly self-inflicted wounds, such as holding penalties, false starts, drops, bad center-quarterback exchanges and turnovers.
“We did some good things as well, but there were way too many penalties. We probably had ten penalties today,” Swinney said. “Offside, holding, couple of receivers were offside, running back was offside, C-Q exchange three times and penalties in the red zone.
“Those are the things that get you beat. It is hard enough to beat the defense and then you do things to beat yourself.”
The offense started the scrimmage well moving the football, but it failed to finish some drives. Elliott cited there were some critical drops and then a couple of penalties.
“Those are things you have to control. You have to control the controllables,” he said. “We did not do a great job there. We came alive later in the scrimmage.”
The Clemson offense came alive during some situational work down in the red zone where it was able to find the end zone.
“Overall, it was good work because it is going to be a great opportunity for us to evaluate a lot of players,” Elliott said. “But at the same time, we were not as consistent as we want to be. But it is a great opportunity for us to go back to work, learn and figure it out.”
Though Swinney was frustrated by the turnovers and the penalties, he was still pleased in other ways. He saw a lot of good things, as the offense still made some nice plays and did well in certain areas despite missing a few players who were held out of the scrimmage.
“It was good to see some guys get an opportunity to step up,” he said. “We are a little more complete on defense right now from a personnel standpoint. We had just a few guys banged up offensively, but again, it was a good day. We have a lot to learn from this tape.”
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