Final Grades: Breaking down Clemson football's 2022 season by position

Phil Mafah was Clemson's highest-graded player on offense this season.

by Ryan Kantor - Contributor - Wed Jan 04 15:20:06 GMT-04:00 2023

Clemson’s season is finally over. As we pause to take stock of how it all shook out, one tool we can use is the Pro Football Focus (PFF) player grades. To assess players and position groups, we collected the grades of every Clemson player that took 100 or more offensive or defensive snaps. We then grouped them by position, took the average grade, and weighted it by the number of snaps each player received. Below is the resulting chart:

I took the PFF grades from all Clemson players with 100+ snaps, grouped them by position, and took the average (weighted by player snap count). pic.twitter.com/hBE5CDJCBN
— Ryan Kantor (@ryan_kantor) January 4, 2023

Running back was Clemson’s strongest position as Will Shipley and Phil Mafah both had stellar years. Shipley had 1,182 rushing yards and 15 TDs while posting a 78.8 PFF grade. He is an expert at fighting for the critical yard when there isn’t an obvious running lane. Phil Mafah had 515 yards and an excellent 81.5 grade.

Defensive end and defensive tackle were the next strongest spots for Clemson. While Myles Murphy and Bryan Bresee may be the hottest topics for the NFL, it was Tyler Davis (83.3) and KJ Henry (83.2) who received the highest grades.

Linebacker was another group that excelled. Jeremiah Trotter Jr. had the highest grade on the entire team at 86.7. Barrett Carter was also excellent (82.8), especially after he moved from SAM to WILL linebacker. Trenton Simpson and LaVonta Bentley were positive contributors with PFF grades a hair below 70.

Things start to trend downward once you get to cornerback. This group got off to a rough start. Nate Wiggins had a PFF grade of 67.6 through eight games but finished with a position-best 77.6. Sheridan Jones missed time with injury but still managed a 71.0 grade across 517 snaps. Toriano Pride wasn’t quite ready from the start of his freshman campaign but showed improvement as the year progressed. Fred Davis II was expected to start but posted a position-low 61.0 grade and ended the season with just 187 snaps. He has since transferred. Clemson has not added any cornerbacks through the portal, which may be an indication that Sheridan Jones will return. If not, this group will be awfully thin next season.

Mason Trotter and Hunter Rayburn seemed poised to compete for the starting job at center, but both were lost for the year before the season even began. The staff shifted Will Putnam from right guard to center and Walker Parks from right tackle to right guard. Putnam was able to maintain his level of play and led all offensive linemen with 1,000 snaps. Walker Parks had a bit more of a learning curve and his PFF grade dropped from 75.8 to 58.1. Marcus Tate was solid at pass protection at left guard before going down with an injury. Tackles Jordan McFadden and Blake Miller each posted PFF grades over 70 to lead the offensive line.

There seemed to be loads of depth at safety entering the year, but Lannden Zanders retired due to shoulder issues and Tyler Venables had several injuries throughout the season. Maybe most impactful was Andrew Mukuba suffering an elbow injury. Upon his return, he had a major sophomore slump – perhaps due to playing at less than 100%. His grade dropped from 77.0 in 2021 to 51.5 this season.

Fortunately, RJ Mickens had another superb season and continues to be the most underrated player on the defense. Jayln Phillips was solid and led all safeties with 670 snaps. Wade Woodaz played both linebacker and safety at times and posted an impressive 74.2 across 180 snaps as a true freshman.

Despite the oddly low score at tight end, both Davis Allen and Jake Briningstool were productive players for Clemson. The score is dragged down by low pass blocking and run blocking from Briningstool.

At the bottom, we once again have the wide receivers. They received our lowest position grade in last year’s season review. With Justyn Ross leaving and no immediate help sought through the transfer portal, we figured there was a good chance they’d struggle again. Antonio Williams and Cole Turner, two newcomers, were the Tigers’ highest-rated receivers in terms of pure pass catching, but Joseph Ngata had the highest overall grade (68.4) thanks to great run blocking. Beyond those three only Beaux Collins posted a score above 60.

Note: QB was not included because only DJ Uiagalelei had enough snaps to qualify and PFF scores for QB can be hard to compare to non-QBs (Uiagalelei finished with a 79.6 grade over 817 snaps, grading below 60 in the last two games; Cade Klubnik finished at 71.1 over 225 snaps).

Final Thoughts

There’s little doubt Clemson’s offensive stars are the running backs. The offensive staff should dedicate themselves to getting them the ball more consistently. Mafah is very productive and may be underutilized. The defensive line continues to be a strength for the Tigers. While Clemson once branded itself as “WRU,” “DLU” would be a much more accurate moniker. The Tigers have struggled at wide receiver for the second straight year, handicapping the offense. They have a chance to be much better next season with Antonio Williams and Turner entering their sophomore seasons, Beaux Collins and Adam Randall getting healthy, and Joe Ngata possibly returning for a fifth year. There’s a big gap to close between Clemson’s offense and the elite offenses we saw in each of the playoff games. Wide receiver is where they can make up the most ground.