For those of you who followed along with these last season and may have been on the lookout the last few weeks, I apologize for not being on the ball ( looking at you @OrangeTigerTower ). There's a ton of stuff to cover so let's get right into it.
We'll start here with what was a little bit of foreshadowing. I want everybody to take note of two things here: Duke is showing a zero coverage look with five guys down on the line of scrimmage and then they bail out into a drop eight zone. Klubnik sees the presnap look and realizing if they come, there are no LBs at the second level to chase Briningstool on the crosser. He locks in hard. The other thing is the switch routes by Collins and Williams. This is a concept we've seen exponentially more of so far this year and it's a zone killer. If Cade realizes postsnap and presnap are total opposites, he has all the protection and time to come back to Beaux and move the sticks here.
After this loss I saw so many folks talking about how the offense looked and felt the same. Couldn't be further from the truth. My hope is that over the last couple of weeks the tempo and spacing improvements are more apparent. Streeter and his offense - "the Clemson offense" - are gone. Look at this little combo right here early in the Duke game. Watch the clock. Move the sticks and we immediately catch them. Looks like a cover three with the middle safety crashing into the flats up top but that Mike bites on the play action instead of covering his middle zone responsibility and you've got two things I like: moving the pocket (a staple of DW4) and Williams running free in the middle of the field.
All offseason we heard "less concepts but out of more looks/formations". So here's a quick example. Let's go back to the opening drive and watch the motion pull a gap open. Check out Tate at LG pin his man and keep his rear end to the ball. That's fantastic. And when it's Williams as the motion man, it's not meaningless because the idea that we throw the backside screen or hand it/pop pass into a sweep is legitimate. He's a chess piece but watch #3 recognize Williams is the H-back, point, and then track him down for a loss. I was super impressed with Dukes safeties by the way. But back to my point - fewer concepts out of more looks - here Riley takes #3 out of the play but it's not the same inside zone nor is it a screen, it's Cade making a quick decision and using his feet. After a couple pathetic attempts by the OL to move anybody off the ball, we get into a now heavily used two-back or 21 personnel look and show a little finesse for a score. Looked like an RPO (now I know it's not) because of how the line down blocks across the line but Mafah never gives the impression he was getting the rock while Shipley comes out of his stance with some purpose and is looking for the pass immediately. Look at #3 again. Williams is pointing him out as hot as he creeps inside prior to the snap and him crashing lets Cade know he's got numbers once Shipley clears. Elko and Co with all those 30-year-olds on defense won the night but Riley was able to layer a lot of looks to get into favorable situations. Unfortunately you still have to execute and Clemson certainly did not.
Barrett Carter is one hell of a football player, but he was missing in Durham. We got gashed with several wheel routes (Lawrance Toafili, are you watching?) but to be fair the second one is on Sheridan. Here's the TD run by Leonard when 0 had him dead to rights for those of you with strong stomachs.
Now I think it's time to turn away from the debacle of a second half at Duke and talk about the real engine of this team - the QB. Week one was not particularly kind to #2 and while I thought his feet were better, I already showed an early example of his eyes failing him. Here the feet and eyes failed. He's got Williams right in front of him. He's got the floater to Mafah available. But like a squirrel caught in the road with oncoming traffic, he makes the fatal decision to not make a decision. But as Garrett Riley said a couple days ago, the last handful of quarters he's played, he's settled in. Let's look at this sequence for example. We get a funky bunch formation at the bottom with Shipley setting up for a screen but check what Klubnik sees up top. Got his deep ball threat working on press man and he's looking for a quick release and then hole shot it between the corner and safety over the top. But it's locked up and they get pressure immediately over Tate. He doesn't go deer in the headlights and take a sack. He doesn't retreat. He doesn't sidearm one towards Shipley. He steps up and uses his legs for a nice gain. Then on the TD to Brown he knows he's about to get hit but he does a nice job of keeping his feet under him and not fading away too much. Reading that Cade changed the route here to a post instead of a smash concept corner route makes me giddy. He's learning on the fly and we've seen flashes of good and bad but I'm confident saying he's only going to continue to improve.
The reality is that none of us know what play is called from either side. We don't know the read(s). We don't know anything but the result. I say that to remind everybody to look away from the ball as often as you can, especially on replays. Football is incredibly complex and every now and then you catch something good happening away from the ball. The natural follow up question to the previous clip and comment is, "Why would he kill the fade/corner in favor of a post?" so let's look at this angle. Presnap you have to identify safeties. Here you've got three guys "deep" with equal spacing and nobody head up on Ennis. This tells me I'm looking at cover three. Each of the guys playing back off the ball is responsible for a deep third of the field. Now check out the guy over Brown and how he is giving a ton of outside shade. So why run a fade/corner route into a well positioned DB? One of the best ways to beat cover three is attacking the seams between the gray areas of each deep third. Klubnik knows Ennis is running over the middle with some depth which should force the middle safety into conflict. Then you've got Brown, with plenty of inside leverage, forcing the far left "safety" to chase him across the field while he goes where the middle safety should've been. On the flip side, if the middle safety stays deep and takes Brown away, there's a window to fire one into Ennis at the sticks. Very, very high level stuff is happening very, very quickly. Keep that in mind while you play armchair QB or go into a rage on the in-game thread.
I don't need to get into the weeds too much with Charleston Southern and FAU, particularly defensively, because I feel like both of them are so far below the rest of the schedule athletically that it's hard to glean much from beating them up. However, when you're the better team, it should look obvious - and it did. The Woodaz pick-six after Lukus laid out a guy and then the Wiggins pick-six in back to back games give me some hope that we can create takeaways and do something with it. But really what I want to talk about is the young guys. Peter Woods hasn't had his name called by the PA announcer a ton but he's looked good in a Tyler Davis-esque role of plugging holes and letting guys on the edge and at LB clean up. The stat sheet doesn't show his work. TJ Parker however has looked like a monster. He took over the CSU game with TFLs here, here, and here where he shows good IQ staying at home and forcing the QB to keep and then cleaning him up. The way he uses his hands has impressed me. Khalil Barnes is the other guy who made the most of early opportunities. He's just a player. Good instincts, like really good instincts. Exactly what Mickey Conn said when we recruited this guy.
I'd be remiss if I didn't use this as a time to show you Tyler Brown's highlight tape. Whether it be punt return, and yes I realize he muffed one, or catching passes, he's been super impressive.
Obviously we got some teeth knocked out on Labor Day but Duke continues to look like a legitimately good football team and the game was far closer than the score indicated. The turnover bug seems to have worked its way out of the system and we've been able to take the ball away from lesser opponents enough to sport a positive turnover differential. Klubnik and the defense both have looked better and better, albeit not perfect. We know what's coming to town this weekend. This is the most complete FSU team we've seen since the one that curb stomped Clemson in 2013 and we all know Mini Mike would love a repeat. Can we beat them? Absolutely. Do I like our odds? Absolutely not. Going to take a perfect game. Offense will have to find a different gear and a lot more consistency. The DL will have to get home with four-man pressures. The LBs will have to play like All-Americans, particularly with their run fits. And we'll have to find somebody not named Nate Wiggins to cover the Wilson/Coleman combo. That being said, there's something fun about being the underdog. Some excitement in being the hunter as opposed to the hunted. We're about to find out if little ol' Clemson is back to being just little ol' Clemson after all.
We'll start here with what was a little bit of foreshadowing. I want everybody to take note of two things here: Duke is showing a zero coverage look with five guys down on the line of scrimmage and then they bail out into a drop eight zone. Klubnik sees the presnap look and realizing if they come, there are no LBs at the second level to chase Briningstool on the crosser. He locks in hard. The other thing is the switch routes by Collins and Williams. This is a concept we've seen exponentially more of so far this year and it's a zone killer. If Cade realizes postsnap and presnap are total opposites, he has all the protection and time to come back to Beaux and move the sticks here.
After this loss I saw so many folks talking about how the offense looked and felt the same. Couldn't be further from the truth. My hope is that over the last couple of weeks the tempo and spacing improvements are more apparent. Streeter and his offense - "the Clemson offense" - are gone. Look at this little combo right here early in the Duke game. Watch the clock. Move the sticks and we immediately catch them. Looks like a cover three with the middle safety crashing into the flats up top but that Mike bites on the play action instead of covering his middle zone responsibility and you've got two things I like: moving the pocket (a staple of DW4) and Williams running free in the middle of the field.
All offseason we heard "less concepts but out of more looks/formations". So here's a quick example. Let's go back to the opening drive and watch the motion pull a gap open. Check out Tate at LG pin his man and keep his rear end to the ball. That's fantastic. And when it's Williams as the motion man, it's not meaningless because the idea that we throw the backside screen or hand it/pop pass into a sweep is legitimate. He's a chess piece but watch #3 recognize Williams is the H-back, point, and then track him down for a loss. I was super impressed with Dukes safeties by the way. But back to my point - fewer concepts out of more looks - here Riley takes #3 out of the play but it's not the same inside zone nor is it a screen, it's Cade making a quick decision and using his feet. After a couple pathetic attempts by the OL to move anybody off the ball, we get into a now heavily used two-back or 21 personnel look and show a little finesse for a score. Looked like an RPO (now I know it's not) because of how the line down blocks across the line but Mafah never gives the impression he was getting the rock while Shipley comes out of his stance with some purpose and is looking for the pass immediately. Look at #3 again. Williams is pointing him out as hot as he creeps inside prior to the snap and him crashing lets Cade know he's got numbers once Shipley clears. Elko and Co with all those 30-year-olds on defense won the night but Riley was able to layer a lot of looks to get into favorable situations. Unfortunately you still have to execute and Clemson certainly did not.
Barrett Carter is one hell of a football player, but he was missing in Durham. We got gashed with several wheel routes (Lawrance Toafili, are you watching?) but to be fair the second one is on Sheridan. Here's the TD run by Leonard when 0 had him dead to rights for those of you with strong stomachs.
Now I think it's time to turn away from the debacle of a second half at Duke and talk about the real engine of this team - the QB. Week one was not particularly kind to #2 and while I thought his feet were better, I already showed an early example of his eyes failing him. Here the feet and eyes failed. He's got Williams right in front of him. He's got the floater to Mafah available. But like a squirrel caught in the road with oncoming traffic, he makes the fatal decision to not make a decision. But as Garrett Riley said a couple days ago, the last handful of quarters he's played, he's settled in. Let's look at this sequence for example. We get a funky bunch formation at the bottom with Shipley setting up for a screen but check what Klubnik sees up top. Got his deep ball threat working on press man and he's looking for a quick release and then hole shot it between the corner and safety over the top. But it's locked up and they get pressure immediately over Tate. He doesn't go deer in the headlights and take a sack. He doesn't retreat. He doesn't sidearm one towards Shipley. He steps up and uses his legs for a nice gain. Then on the TD to Brown he knows he's about to get hit but he does a nice job of keeping his feet under him and not fading away too much. Reading that Cade changed the route here to a post instead of a smash concept corner route makes me giddy. He's learning on the fly and we've seen flashes of good and bad but I'm confident saying he's only going to continue to improve.
The reality is that none of us know what play is called from either side. We don't know the read(s). We don't know anything but the result. I say that to remind everybody to look away from the ball as often as you can, especially on replays. Football is incredibly complex and every now and then you catch something good happening away from the ball. The natural follow up question to the previous clip and comment is, "Why would he kill the fade/corner in favor of a post?" so let's look at this angle. Presnap you have to identify safeties. Here you've got three guys "deep" with equal spacing and nobody head up on Ennis. This tells me I'm looking at cover three. Each of the guys playing back off the ball is responsible for a deep third of the field. Now check out the guy over Brown and how he is giving a ton of outside shade. So why run a fade/corner route into a well positioned DB? One of the best ways to beat cover three is attacking the seams between the gray areas of each deep third. Klubnik knows Ennis is running over the middle with some depth which should force the middle safety into conflict. Then you've got Brown, with plenty of inside leverage, forcing the far left "safety" to chase him across the field while he goes where the middle safety should've been. On the flip side, if the middle safety stays deep and takes Brown away, there's a window to fire one into Ennis at the sticks. Very, very high level stuff is happening very, very quickly. Keep that in mind while you play armchair QB or go into a rage on the in-game thread.
I don't need to get into the weeds too much with Charleston Southern and FAU, particularly defensively, because I feel like both of them are so far below the rest of the schedule athletically that it's hard to glean much from beating them up. However, when you're the better team, it should look obvious - and it did. The Woodaz pick-six after Lukus laid out a guy and then the Wiggins pick-six in back to back games give me some hope that we can create takeaways and do something with it. But really what I want to talk about is the young guys. Peter Woods hasn't had his name called by the PA announcer a ton but he's looked good in a Tyler Davis-esque role of plugging holes and letting guys on the edge and at LB clean up. The stat sheet doesn't show his work. TJ Parker however has looked like a monster. He took over the CSU game with TFLs here, here, and here where he shows good IQ staying at home and forcing the QB to keep and then cleaning him up. The way he uses his hands has impressed me. Khalil Barnes is the other guy who made the most of early opportunities. He's just a player. Good instincts, like really good instincts. Exactly what Mickey Conn said when we recruited this guy.
I'd be remiss if I didn't use this as a time to show you Tyler Brown's highlight tape. Whether it be punt return, and yes I realize he muffed one, or catching passes, he's been super impressive.
Obviously we got some teeth knocked out on Labor Day but Duke continues to look like a legitimately good football team and the game was far closer than the score indicated. The turnover bug seems to have worked its way out of the system and we've been able to take the ball away from lesser opponents enough to sport a positive turnover differential. Klubnik and the defense both have looked better and better, albeit not perfect. We know what's coming to town this weekend. This is the most complete FSU team we've seen since the one that curb stomped Clemson in 2013 and we all know Mini Mike would love a repeat. Can we beat them? Absolutely. Do I like our odds? Absolutely not. Going to take a perfect game. Offense will have to find a different gear and a lot more consistency. The DL will have to get home with four-man pressures. The LBs will have to play like All-Americans, particularly with their run fits. And we'll have to find somebody not named Nate Wiggins to cover the Wilson/Coleman combo. That being said, there's something fun about being the underdog. Some excitement in being the hunter as opposed to the hunted. We're about to find out if little ol' Clemson is back to being just little ol' Clemson after all.
