As Brandon Streeter goes through his first spring as Clemson’s offensive coordinator, he can’t help but think about a particular lesson learned from his predecessor.
The Tigers are largely keeping the same system that was in place under former play caller Tony Elliott, who worked on Clemson’s staff with Streeter for seven seasons before taking his first head coach job at Virginia in December. But Streeter, previously a coordinator at Richmond and Liberty before initially joining Dabo Swinney’s staff as quarterbacks coach in 2015, is adding his own flavor to it, including a bigger emphasis on tempo.
Dictating how fast or slow plays are being called and run, though, requires constant and clear communication from all parties involved in a short amount of time, which was Streeter’s primary takeaway from seeing Elliott in action up close for the better part of a decade.
“That’s what I learned from Tony,” Streeter said. “Just unbelievable as far as how he was very clear on that.”
Clemson’s offense under Elliott’s direction used tempo at times, too. It helped the Tigers finish in the top 40 nationally in total offense in six of the last seven years, including five top-15 finishes. Clemson also ranked in the top 35 in scoring the first six seasons of Elliott’s tenure as a coordinator before dropping to 82nd this past season.
Streeter said he wants the same kind of results but “just everything moving a little faster.” That can’t happen without players and coaches working in unison, Streeter said, which has been a focus for the offense through the first nine spring practices.
So far, so good.
“We weren’t fast all the time, which is fine,” Streeter said of Elliott’s offenses. “We’ve been unbelievable around here as far as not giving up tackles of loss, and that’s because we put ourselves in good situations and we’ve been able to communicate up front and we’ve all been on the same page.”
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