Clemson reeled off five straight wins to finish the regular season strong. But for the first time since 2014, the Tigers won’t be part of the College Football Playoff. They’re not even playing for an ACC championship this weekend.
In other words, not everything went as expected for Clemson, even amid a season that came with its share of transition on offense in the post-Trevor Lawrence era.
As Clemson waits to see which bowl game it will end up in to officially put a bow on the 2021 season, here’s a look at five surprises — good and bad — that played out for the Tigers this fall.
D.J. Uiagalelei’s performance
It’s not all that surprising that Clemson’s offense took a step back with Lawrence and Travis Etienne — you know, the program’s all-time leading rusher — no longer around. But given the way Uiagalelei played when he got his shot last season, it was hard to envision this coming from Lawrence’s successor.
A former blue-chip recruit himself, Uiagalelei made a grand introduction to the college football world in two spot starts for Lawrence last season, throwing for 781 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions in a comeback win over Boston College and a double-overtime loss on the road against a top-5 Notre Dame team. Uiagalelei has the kind of pure arm talent that many NFL quarterbacks would envy, but he was precise with that strength, too (69.4% completion rate).
That created Heisman Trophy buzz and NIL deals at the both the local and national levels leading up to the season, but whether it was the pressure of taking over full-time for a No. 1 overall draft pick, youth, mechanics or a combination of it all, Uiagalelei wasn’t nearly the same quarterback this season. He completed less than half of his passes five times and owns the second-lowest completion rate (54.7%) among ACC starting quarterbacks. He’s thrown as many interceptions as touchdowns (9).
Uiagalelei has had moments where he’s teased back to shades of his small sample size last season. He’s led fourth-quarter comebacks against Florida State and Louisville and ripped off touchdown tosses of 46 and 58 yards against the Cardinals and Wake Forest, respectively.
He’s also played with a sprained knee and a dinged index finger on his throwing hand the last four games, so Clemson first has to get its quarterback healthy before working with him on his game this offseason.
Yet…
Clemson’s offense finally broke out
There usually comes a time over the course of a 12-game season where the realization sets in that you are what you are. And despite coaches and players trying to talk a breakout performance into existence for the longest, it looked like that point had been reached by the Tigers’ offense in late October when Clemson had yet another anemic showing in a 27-17 loss at Pittsburgh, one in which the Tigers’ second and final touchdown didn’t come until faced with their biggest deficit midway through the fourth quarter.
With two-thirds of their season in the books at that point, there was genuine curiosity as to whether or not Clemson would ever crack the 20-point mark in regulation against an FBS opponent. That question was answered when Clemson’s offense scored 24 points in a comeback win over Florida State the next week, but you would be forgiven if you subscribed to that theory about a blind squirrel and an acorn given the way the unit had been consistently performing.
But it took all of one week for the Tigers to show that wasn’t a one-time thing. They put up 30 on Louisville the following week and then 44 against Connecticut.
The next week? 48 — all from the offense — against then-No. 10 Wake Forest. Then Clemson dropped 30 on South Carolina at Williams-Brice Stadium, where the Gamecocks hadn’t allowed more than 17 to any opponent all season. It averaged out to 36 points over the Tigers’ final four games — or 16 more than their season average.
A resurgent running game spearheaded the turnaround. With an offensive line that finally began to get some continuity to it and Will Shipley and Kobe Pace healthy again, Clemson averaged 208 rushing yards over the last five games. The Tigers saved their best two for last, rushing for a season-high 333 yards and four touchdowns in the 21-point win over Wake Forest before going for 265 yards on the ground against Carolina.
An elite cornerback tandem emerges
Andrew Booth has always been capable of performing at a high level. The only issue for the former five-star recruit, as Clemson coach Dabo Swinney pointed out repeatedly in the preseason, has been staying on the field long enough to have his impact felt consistently in Clemson’s secondary.
But the expectation was that, as long as he could stay healthy, he would be lining up opposite Derion Kendrick, who ended last season as one of the ACC’s top cover corners. But Kendrick was booted from the team during the offseason, leaving a major question as to who the Tigers’ No. 2 corner would be.
Sheridan Jones and Fred Davis were among the other competitors vying for that starting spot opposite Booth, but Mario Goodrich won the job during fall camp and never looked back. As first-team all-ACC performers, he and Booth have morphed into the top cornerback tandem in the ACC.
And not just when it comes to locking down opposing receivers on the outside.
Sure, both have been good in coverage. Goodrich, who’s been thrown at more, is second on the team with seven pass breakups to go with one interception, and Booth has taken advantage of most of the opportunities he’s gotten. South Carolina, for example, had to throw the ball more than it wanted against Clemson with its running game grounded and tried to pick on him. Booth responded with the first multi-interception game of his career.
But both are physical players who don’t mind mixing it up in run support. Goodrich (47 tackles) started the season with 12 tackles against Georgia. Booth has 37, including three for loss. Both are among the team’s top 10 tacklers this season.
They’ve increased their draft stocks to the point that Clemson is going to have to find two new starting corners next season, which was hard to predict before the season started. Booth, who’s played in all but one game as a junior, is widely projected to be taken in the first round of next year’s NFL Draft while Goodrich has accepted an invite to the Senior Bowl.
Several freshmen make major contributions
Clemson brought in plenty of new talent as part of a top-5 recruiting class. But the Tigers have been recruiting at a high level for a while under Swinney, so it was far from a guarantee for many freshmen when it came to trying to crack the two-deep.
But whether it was sheer ability, unforeseen opportunities or a combination of the two, Clemson threw plenty of its newcomers into the fire this season. Some even found themselves in starting roles at key positions.
The most significant impacts were made by Will Shipley and Andrew Mukuba. The fleet-footed Shipley, a former five-star signee, always seemed destined to see the field early even in a crowded backfield that included Etienne’s longtime backup, Lyn-J Dixon.
Shipley began getting some first-team reps early in fall camp, and once Dixon transferred after three games, the writing was on the wall. Shipley and sophomore Kobe Pace quickly separated themselves as the top two backs, but Shipley has more carries than anyone (131) despite missing three games with various injuries. He still leads the Tigers in rushing yards (678) and touchdowns (10).
Mukuba, meanwhile, impressed enough to grab a starting spot at safety in his first college game against Georgia and has rarely relinquished it. He’s fifth on the team with 52 tackles in nine starts and leads the Tigers with nine pass breakups. Receiver Beaux Collins joined one of the deeper positions on Clemson’s roster and didn’t figure to have nearly as big a role as Shipley or Mukuba, but that changed over the course of the season as the Tigers gradually lost three of their top receivers (Frank Ladson Jr., Justyn Ross. Joseph Ngata) to injuries. Now Collins, who’s provided some big plays through the air (13.8 yards per catch), is second on the team in receptions (28) and receiving yards (387).
Perhaps the biggest surprise among the newcomers was the immediate insertion of Marcus Tate along the offensive line. Once Clemson decided to move Matt Bockhorst over to center at the start of the season, the Tigers needed another starting left guard. Tate has been in and out of the starting lineup since (seven starts), but he has gotten more snaps (555) than any of Clemson’s newcomers.
And it’s easy to forget about Will Taylor, who would’ve been the Tigers’ primary punt returner all season had it not been cut short. A shifty receiver who will also play baseball at Clemson, Taylor showed his speed and athleticism when he returned a punt 51 yards for a touchdown against South Carolina State in the third game of the season before sustaining a season-ending knee injury.
Clemson can still get to 10 wins
This may be the most surprising development of them all given the circumstances surrounding this season.
Clemson still has the nation’s No. 2 scoring defense and an offense that’s come around despite the attrition. Because the loss of a few backup linemen in the preseason and its punt returner six games in was just the start.
Whether it be injuries, transfers or brief absences related to COVID-19, Clemson has also played part if not most of the season without its most experienced running back (Dixon), both starting interior defensive linemen (Bryan Bresee and Tyler Davis), a trio of defensive ends (Xavier Thomas, Justin Foster and Justin Mascoll) and a veteran starter on the offensive line (Bockhorst). The attrition has played a part in Clemson having to go with seven different starting combinations along that offensive front.
And for the last handful of games, Clemson has been without its top four receivers (Ladson, Ngata, Ross and E.J. Williams). Yet the Tigers still won six of their last seven to put themselves in position for an 11th straight double-digit win season, which Swinney has said would be as good as any that have come before it if Clemson can finish the job.
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