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YOUR BALANCE
4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.
Tiger Boards - Clemson Football
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Replies: 40
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4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.

8

Nov 30, 2024, 6:14 PM
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1. The most pathetic thing about our team during this game was repeatedly being totally incapable of adjusting to stop the QB run. Once it was clear we were totally incapable of stopping the QB run it was only a matter of time until they ran clock and punched it in.

2. Forcing turnovers is great, but it isn't as good of a metric to judge a DC as yards per rush. Turnovers are relatively rare and can happen for reasons not directly related to defensive coaching. Yards per rush averages something that is a crucial fundamental for defenses. Our championship teams would sometimes give up more points depending on the flow of the game but when it came down to "game on the line" situations our defense often won the game because our defensive coordinator TOOK EVERYTHING INTO ACCOUNT and made adjustments during the final battles. Today, we were totally LOST and had no chance during that final drive. It was OBVIOUS what they should do and OBVIOUS we couldn't stop it.

3. We ran 4.3 yards per carry on offense. That is not bad at all. We gained 7.6 yards per pass. We had over 400 yards on offense. Also not bad. We had 3 well-called drives that ended with no points for OC non-coaching related reasons. 1, our coach decided to go for it on 4th down and used an OBVIOUS gimmick power formation that they knew exactly how to stop. Should have kicked a field goal. 2, on another great drive, we had a horrible overturned call that gave them the ball. And, 3, on a well-coached and executed final drive, Cade made a bad choice and a bad throw that ruined an otherwise great drive.

4. The offense has clearly addressed certain fundamental failures from last season. Our biggest fundamental failures from defense are WORSE now than ever. LB's taking awful angles, losing contain, pathetic tackling. On offense we BLOCK better, we CATCH better, we are making less stupid mistakes. Yes, we should be doing better and Riley is NOT earning his paycheck.... but the defense is lost and turnovers are keeping many fans confused as to how bad.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.

4

Nov 30, 2024, 6:17 PM
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Too long to read it all ... our offense only scored 14 points. Defense had 3 turnovers, and offense didn't capitalize on any of them.

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Being lazy is why you have the opinion you have. Know yourself.***

4

Nov 30, 2024, 6:17 PM
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Re: Being lazy is why you have the opinion you have. Know yourself.***

2

Nov 30, 2024, 6:24 PM
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Having an illogical bias is the reason you have the opinion you have. The offense had multiple chances to put this game away but screwed the pooch.

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Re: Being lazy is why you have the opinion you have. Know yourself.***

1

Nov 30, 2024, 6:34 PM [ in reply to Being lazy is why you have the opinion you have. Know yourself.*** ]
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You can use lots of words to try to prove your point, but bottom line is 14 points is not going to win many games with today’s style of play. This is a recurring theme against decent defenses. We cannot score. That was rarely a problem in the past. It’s now a coaching (playing not to lose) and talent issue.

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14 points is not enough. 400+ yards usually produces more points.

1

Nov 30, 2024, 6:41 PM
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Alabama played worse on offense than we did in terms of efficiency, and they still beat SCAR.

They scored more points. Complimentary football is crucial. Our offense had good time of possession. Not many 3 and outs.

We got 22 first downs. There was no single thing our offense was incapable of. We threw, we ran, all over the field. It did not amount to enough points, but we can't evaluate a coaching job on just points.

I think the biggest thing we have that we can all agree on, the most single inept element of that game, if we all had to pick one small specific part of the game.... was being completely inept at stopping the QB run every single time.

There was no equivalent on the offense. That's a sign of broken coaching.

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Re: 14 points is not enough. 400+ yards usually produces more points.


Nov 30, 2024, 7:59 PM
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We definitely don’t play complimentary football. It’s painfully obvious. The issue with the offense is bad play calling. It’s a weird brew of horribly timed calls, calling plays like they are afraid of their own shadows, and not calling plays to help Cade with his yips. The defense has taken a step back. I think that has more to do with talent on the D line than it does coaching.

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I thought playcalls were good today as they resulted in many good drives.

1

Nov 30, 2024, 8:04 PM
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It's hard to have 400+ yards against a solid defense if your playcalls are simply bad. We have had plenty of bad playcalls over the years. I did not see that this game.

I thought the playcall on 4th down was bad. I thought the call on that last interception was bad. But the vast majority of the game I thought playcalls were good.

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Re: I thought playcalls were good today as they resulted in many good drives.


Nov 30, 2024, 8:16 PM
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The entire 4th quarter was way too conservative. They need to cut it lose. Maybe they still don’t trust Cade - I dunno.

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Re: 14 points is not enough. 400+ yards usually produces more points.

1

Nov 30, 2024, 8:19 PM [ in reply to 14 points is not enough. 400+ yards usually produces more points. ]
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Our offense has big problems since CK2 became QB, and despite us having the best OL play since 2019, and our best WR corp since 2020, we are not good against good teams.

However, I must agree with you that our defense is the biggest mystery. Our defense has underperformed in the last three years, despite still having plenty of truly high end personnel. I get it that, in 2022 after Venables departed, there would be a drop off of 1+ years while W.Goodwin learned to translate his superior defensive analyst acumen into a superior ‘teaching coach’ and how to master the in-game adjustments that is expected from a superior DC.

After 3 seasons, I’ve lost confidence that Goodwin can do more with less. Heck, I’d be happy if he could generate actual performance from his unit that is commensurate with the talent on D.

When we cannot stop a one trick pony offense … a mistake prone one trick pony offense, at that … to under 10 points and less than 150 yards rushing, then it’s time to rethink who is coordinating and why how long does he get to keep underperforming.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.

3

Nov 30, 2024, 6:17 PM
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Nobody got time for that....offense blew it

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Lazy thinking gets lazy results. Good thing we don't matter.***


Nov 30, 2024, 6:19 PM
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Re: Lazy thinking gets lazy results. Good thing we don't matter.***


Nov 30, 2024, 6:40 PM
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With the offensive gameplan being used, Clemson does not matter at all in college football.

Defenses good enough that Clemson is 11-1 right now without much critical thinking. The OC/Clemson offense is a disaster at this stage in the season. Not championship stretch material to use CDS words

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The offense HAS to score points.

2

Nov 30, 2024, 6:19 PM
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14 is not enough.

Since the BYE…we have not scored points.

This team does not have any margin for error since our FG kicking stinks and we don’t score points.

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Going for it on 4th down was a HC call. The bad overturned call was the refs.

3

Nov 30, 2024, 6:21 PM
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The final drive was well-coached and a single gaff blew it.

The offense was bad. The defense was worse.

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Re: Going for it on 4th down was a HC call. The bad overturned call was the refs.

1

Nov 30, 2024, 8:30 PM
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The way that Sellers scrambled so successfully, one would have thought he was a dual threat running QB monster such as Cam Newton.

S.Carolina’s mistaken prone offense should have been easy to contain, given that we had:

There were 11 games of S.Carol8na film to study and dissect; they’ve done the same thing all year (Sellers is primary weapon and Sanders is secondary weapon. Pass game is not much of a threat.)

An extra week to prepare for S.Carolina (evidence being how poorly our defense was prepared for Citadel … which we should have all been cool with 5hat).

All of our key defensive personnel were rested and healed up for the effort.

Yet … although schematically our D formations were perfect for defending S.Carolina’s offense, we still couldn’t make the plays. Many of the times because, for the past two years, we tackle poorly.

No way S.Carolina’s offensevshould score more than 10 points against us … even if there were zero turnovers on their side.

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Normally that would be true. But we did nothing to stop their QB. Nothing

2

Nov 30, 2024, 6:21 PM [ in reply to The offense HAS to score points. ]
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No adjustments, no nothing.

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Exactly. There is not one thing the offense was literally incapable of.

2

Nov 30, 2024, 6:23 PM
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The defense was literally incapable of something over and over. The defense couldn't even stop Citadel running. Turnovers are not a sustainable strategy to win games.

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Re: Exactly. There is not one thing the offense was literally incapable of.


Nov 30, 2024, 6:44 PM
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Yet held them to 17 points

How can you defend this atrocious offense. Are you on payroll ?? Are you Dabo ?? I mean come on you know the reality but choose to blindly go where no man should go.

We scored 14 puny points. To beat anybody with 14 points is virtually impossible in 2024….except Michigan AND OCrybaby State today lol.

Neither defense or offense are high caliber and beating any decent teams anymore. Not a single signature win and don’t give me Pitt with a backup QB, that’s not gonna cut it. See Pitt today with BC, that’s a bad team.

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Re: Exactly. There is not one thing the offense was literally incapable of.

1

Nov 30, 2024, 8:35 PM
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Comparatively speak8ng, our defense, when healthy, has a better combination of talent (from the perspectives of numerically and top end quality aspects) -plus- experience than the offense.

Therefore, we should expect more from our defense than from our offense.

S.Carolina has a fearsome defensive line, so it is not surprising that our OK offense struggled.

On the other hand, S.Caroluna has what equates to a Stone Age offense … yet our defense underperformsvagainstntheirbweak offense.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.

2

Nov 30, 2024, 6:25 PM
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You’re begging the question. The offense may well be as good as or better than the defense. Today’s issue is the OC (or someone in charge) put the offense in Neutral for several 4th quarter possessions with a lead and with the chance to go up 2 scores and seal the victory. The same offense that had moved up and down the field effectively while building said lead.

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I am saying our points didn't accurately reflect our offensive coaching today,


Nov 30, 2024, 6:31 PM
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I am also saying the same for the defense. I am basing this on the points I made in the OP.

Alabama had 313 yards vs SCAR. We had 100 more than that.

Alabama ran 2.7 yards per carry vs them. We had over 4.


The score is not a perfect reflection of how well our offense was coached. 3 very good drives had 3 odd endings. 1 refs, 1 Dabo (got for it on 4th using that OBVIOUS HC playcall), and one single bad pass that deflected into the arms of a diving defender. All three well-called drives.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.

1

Nov 30, 2024, 6:27 PM
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Offense scored 14 points.
End of story. Defense was gassed.
The offense just goes to sleep during the most critical parts of games.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.


Nov 30, 2024, 6:49 PM
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As porous as the defensive line appeared, I blame this loss on the offensive play calling.

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Class of '87


Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.


Nov 30, 2024, 6:28 PM
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Even after all the negative plays, it came down to that final throw and interception by Cade. No reason to throw that pass. We had time to throw 2 balls to the end zone for the win, or try for FG to send it into OT. That useless throw ended all hope.

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Throwing that pass was a terrible decision. I wish I knew the intent of the play


Nov 30, 2024, 6:32 PM
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-call. Even if it was completed, it was worthless. If that was the primary goal of the playcall then absolutely it was a stupid OC coaching job.

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Re: Throwing that pass was a terrible decision. I wish I knew the intent of the play


Nov 30, 2024, 6:48 PM
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Watch video and watch Cade have no field vision and understanding of situations. The kid is really good but he missed a wide open crosser in Birningstool because he locked on that stupid play that gained absolutely nothing even if completed.

It was bad decision and he had a guy.

Don’t watch video, it will sicken you as Jake had worked open and Cade simply rushed it. Very Bad end to a very bad day that did not have to be.

Coaching!! From the top coaching has failed this team this year. Period.

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But the playcall resulted in an open man that the QB didn't use.


Nov 30, 2024, 6:50 PM
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Right?

So had the player taken better advantage of the gameplan, then we would have had winning results?

Cade has had a miracle improvement this year. Obviously he still makes mistakes but he is lightyears better than last year.

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Re: But the playcall resulted in an open man that the QB didn't use.


Nov 30, 2024, 7:53 PM
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Yes playcall had a guy open and it’s probably true multiple times today snd every game. CK didn’t see him, rushed the throw, and the result was worst possible.

Even with playcalls, without execution it will not work. Defense has playcalls and outside of those 5 or 6 plays that Sellers made defenders look silly and slow, they did very little. They had some run game but nothing big outside of those Sellers runs.

Clemson has got to figure out scoring. App State and others aren’t in ACCCG or CFP, all those teams are as good or better than anyone Clemson has played (including Georgia). I do not know the answer but moving the ball is nice and pretty much they also have 3 and outs FAR too often. Onsides kick recovery 3 and out was as bad as it gets. Playcalls were bad, execution poor, just nasty as ####.

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Defense hasnt been great this year


Nov 30, 2024, 6:30 PM
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but I thought they had a great game plan today, and executed it pretty well. That QB just made plays when things broke down for him.

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"I've played multiple sports and would bet any amount that I'm still more athletic than you at this present time...."


It shouldn't be impossible, actually impossible, to stop a QB doing


Nov 30, 2024, 6:33 PM
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whatever he wants whenever he wants.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.


Nov 30, 2024, 6:31 PM
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We were 51st in Total Defense prior to this game.

Streeter was fired when we had a top 30 offense with DJ at QB.

Dabo has to pull the trigger. We were elite on defense under BV. We aren’t elite anymore. Not even close to it.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.


Nov 30, 2024, 6:32 PM
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Bottom line :defense had 3 turnovers. Offense only had 2 tds

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.


Nov 30, 2024, 6:32 PM
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Yes, the defense has problems. But they held SC to 7 points for 3 quarters. Our offense didn't score at all in the 1st quarter or the 4th quarter. But I blame Cade more than Riley. He played very good at times but still has those plays that cost us the game or stops the momentum. I call them "DJ" plays. I'll take him over DJ any day of the week but he still costs the team wins. I do detest the trick plays that don't work but other than that I don't blame Riley. That could be Dabo. Look if we make both of the FG's that should have been attempted were all talking here about how good the defense was. Yes, they gave up a lot of rushing yardage but for 3 quarters it was bend don't break. In the 4th quarter it was bend and break. If we only make one of the attempts we go to OT at home.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.


Nov 30, 2024, 6:36 PM
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You make points that are true but be honest with yourself. Ask yourself this question.

Clemson against UGA : defense held to 6 points 1st half. Offense scored and did nothing at all. Defense on field far too much. Some offense and maybe a TD and game flow might change entirely. 3 points was putrid

Clemson against Lville : again offense not to be found until 3th quarter down 19. Defense was not good for sure but offense provided nothing until too late… and then it was as if Clemson was bleeding clock down by 3 scores. Terrible again on offense

Clemson against Pitt : Clemson needed TD under 2 minutes to beat a rather average to below average Pitt team. Defense again gives up big plays, but you can’t score more than Pitt with this “improved” offense ??

Clemson against App State & NCSU : defense was up for 42 and 28 before allowing a score. Defense is NOT going to play as hard and why should they up that much. Reserves played alot and gave up yards points that are meaningless… games over early, move on

Clemson against Colts : We’ll stop me now because today is entirely on the offense. Complete crap showing putting up 14 #### points on that defense. Yards and yards but nothing repeatedly gained on scoreboard. Stupid unforced uncovers cost Clemson any chance. Defense allows 17, should Clemson lose a game giving up 17 stinking points ??? Coots are not a good defense and considering those edge rushers did very little to passing game says alot about just how bad today was.

Riley. Is. A. Problem. Wes is not BV but he certainly is a good enough DC that any decent OC should win most if not practically all these games Clemson has lost due to a plain ole bad offensive plan.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.

1

Nov 30, 2024, 6:47 PM
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UGA: Offense was primarily to blame. I agree.

Louisville: Offense very bad. Defense worse. You can't win if you give up over 6 yards per carry.

Pitt: Offense won that game for us. It was not good enough though based on how much we pay. Should have scored more.

App State and NC State: Offense much better than defense in both games.

Riley is a problem. He is not earning his paycheck at all. Not even close. But the offense has showed improvement from last year. The defense is worse. There is no single thing the offense is repeatedly incapable of. The defense has the same problems every week.

We agree that the offense has failed. We disagree that the defense has failed.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.

1

Nov 30, 2024, 8:02 PM
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You are very on point with your arguments. I disagree on the offense/defense but only in execution/outcome. Clemson can and does move the ball at times, but too often they look slow and ill-prepared.

Defense also has tendency to give up big plays, especially the run game. Gashed too often, BUT, if you look at the games and scores you know the offense is every bit as guilty for the results this season, if not more than the defense.

Wes and Riley both have to be better.

Talent is not 2016-2020 level, not even close, but there are opportunities that are available without getting the results. I’d like to see complimentary football where defense makes a play and offense puts a TD on the board. Or offense scores TD and defense holds to a 3 & out. And I mean against good teams, like today. Defense makes a play and offense didn’t take advantage at all today.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.


Nov 30, 2024, 6:40 PM
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Probably 200 yards of that came on 50/50 balls. I mean y'all can do what y'all want but I've seen enough. Riley ain't the guy and his garbage ### system is being hard carried by our talent.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.


Nov 30, 2024, 8:07 PM
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Sammy Brown was making plays and always around the ball when he was in and then suddenly wasn't for the majority of the rest of the game. He is one of the top 5 athletes on the team and needs to be on the field. Barrett Carter was supposed to be the type of talent that could chase an athlete like sellers down and he was nowhere to be found today.

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I agree with your points.


Nov 30, 2024, 8:16 PM
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I'm also of the opinion our defense is atrocious. That doesn't mean they cost us the game. It means our defense is atrocious. And they have been all year, while continuing to trend downwards.

I can say all of this and still be pissed at our ineptitude on offense.

The issue is, Dabo is in the offense and not the defense. Purely speculation, but I'm completely convinced this clamming up chickenshid conservative play calling late in games is 1,000% Dabo Swinney, bc it's been going on for years.

I don't see that changing until he leaves.

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Re: 4 points explaining why the defense is worse than the offense.


Nov 30, 2024, 8:27 PM
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Good points - I agree 100%

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