Heading into this season, Clemson fans had high hopes for the Tigers’ offense with the addition of 2022 Broyles Award winner Garrett Riley.
At TCU last season, Riley had the Horned Frog’s offense humming as they made a shocking run to the National Championship. Expectations were vast with what we saw from the TCU offense last season, the move over to Clemson with the talent on this roster.
Through six weeks, those expectations have not been met. In all honesty, they haven’t been close to met.
During head coach Dabo Swinney’s call-in show on Monday, Swinney was asked if there was a leash on Riley and this offense. According to Swinney, Riley ‘doesn’t have a leash on him.’
“He’s not on a short leash, for sure. I think you’ve got a combination,” Swinney said. “First of all, you’re playing different teams. We’ve played some pretty good teams. Duke’s a good team. Florida State is pretty good. Syracuse was a Top 10 defense in the country, scoring defense, going up there at their place. We played some teams that we put up a ton of offense in several games, outside of this past one here. He’s done a heck of a job. And he’s got a young quarterback. Last year, the quarterback he had was a fifth or sixth-year player, so he’s got a young guy and had a couple guys out as well, but he’s done a heck of a job. Again, almost 500 yards against Duke, and we got beat. Outgained Florida State by 100-something yards, but we got beat.
“It’s been more turnover issues, and he’s put us in position to win every single game. That’s for sure. Not that he’s perfect or can’t do some things better — that’s not what I mean. You’ve got to give the opponent some credit as well. He’s done a heck of a job and settled in, and he doesn’t have a leash on him, that’s for sure.”
The turnovers have been a serious issue for this team, but the problems are deeper than that. Like last season, situational play-calling has been somewhat confusing.
The RPO/QB option plays, for example… there are situations where we’re being told that the coaching staff needs to do a better job with starting quarterback Cade Klubnik in those situations. Rather than that, why not just run the ball instead of having that option? I find it hard to believe that there isn’t a single designed run call for those situations.
Sometimes, the simple thing to do is correct thing to do, but this offense looks like it is overcomplicating things.
There is a lot of work this offense needs to do, and luckily for the Tigers, Week 7 is their bye week. Hopefully, we will see a new look Clemson offense in Week 8 when they travel to face Miami.