Sunday Thoughts: Swinney, Tigers have tough decisions ahead

Clemson's Tigers are in unfamiliar territory.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Sun Oct 29 15:11:03 GMT-05:00 2023

Ah, the day after. The sun comes out, the birds are singing, and the malaise of Saturday football is lessened a little bit with further reflection. Right? In many cases, yes. In this case, no.

Clemson suffered yet another loss to a very average team Saturday – and if you think that Miami and NC State are anything better than average, you’re not watching. The stars were once again in Clemson’s favor, but the stats only tell part of the story. Yet another team with a quarterback without much of a pulse waited patiently for Clemson to beat itself. And that’s something the Tigers have accomplished in spectacular fashion of late.

Let’s start with the Pack – I heard in the pressbox that head coach Dave Doeren feels like Clemson is their Super Bowl. So, once again, Clemson gets somebody’s best shot. But this is a Wolfpack team with a good but not great defense and one offensive player with any pulse in receiver Kevin Concepcion (who really wanted a Clemson offer).

And while Clemson's defense played well enough to win, so did Concepcion, who caught two touchdown passes, including one on a third-and-short when the Tigers called a zero blitz and corner Toriano Pride failed to make the tackle. Other than that, however, NC State was content to lay back and let Clemson pile up the mistakes.

We’ve seen this offense struggle for three years now – under Tony Elliott, under Brandon Streeter, and now Garrett Riley. And it didn’t escape my attention that Athletic Director Graham Neff positioned himself in the endzone in the second half Saturday and zeroed in on Clemson’s players and sideline. Everyone, from the top down, is watching and evaluating and waiting to see what happens next.

Look, we can get this out of the way. Clemson has more than one issue. If I were a head coach, there are some things I would change regarding recruiting and scholarships and how offers are handed out. And with today’s restrictions on practice, I would want to make sure that the players on the scout team – whether on scholarship or walk-ons – give my starters the best look. Practice has to be harder than the games.

No, it’s not all on quarterback Cade Klubnik. He has made mistakes and doesn’t appear to be developing. But his offensive line is bad, his receivers (especially some I watched in the second half) aren’t playing as well as they should (and I hate seeing receivers loaf). There was a hold that killed a drive, a facemask that killed a drive, and a dropped pass on third down that killed a drive. A missed block by the left tackle could have ended in disaster after Klubnik was drilled and fumbled (Phil Mafah recovered it). Yes, there are a ton of player issues.

And that last drive? This offense hasn’t been dynamic in three years. You have 4:23 on the clock, and you have to drive 92 yards. You need chunk plays, and you need them fast, right? Instead, five plays were called runs to Mafah, and before you knew it, there was just 1:15 left to play, you had to call timeout, and there was more than half the field to go.

One person stood outside the locker room and said through clenched teeth, “Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.”

So yes, there are issues with players. Coaches don’t fumble. Coaches don’t commit penalties. But from play calling to player development to the continued kicking experiment that doesn’t seem to work, there are more issues than the players. And that all comes back to coaching. Clemson’s staff in many spots is short on experience, and it’s hard to develop players when you’re trying to develop your coaches.

Changes? They won’t happen this week. The focus is solely on Notre Dame. However,, we are entering unfamiliar territory for this program under Swinney. Back in 2009 and 2010, he was building a program. Now, the program is built. The facilities are building. The branding and social media are all on point. Money flows into the program. No one needs to blow it up and start over. But changes are needed, and this November is different than any we’ve seen in a long time. Dabo's not dumb, and pain is a great motivator.

As that person said outside the locker room – tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.