As game week nears, Clemson offense looks for consistency and health

Joseph Ngata has battled a sore hamstring.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Aug 23 08:00:06 GMT-04:00 2021

CLEMSON – We’re a little closer to football season and actual games.

Clemson ended fall camp last week and held its final full scrimmage of August Thursday in Death Valley, the first time since practice started that they’ve been able to go inside the stadium (rains have been the norm here in the afternoons). The coaches gave the players most of the weekend off, and Sunday evening was the start of more of a game week schedule with meetings and players reporting to the training room for treatment.

We will have interviews following practice Tuesday and Thursday this week and then we begin normal game week interviews a week from today.

So, where do things stand right now? We’ve garnered a lot of information over the last week of camp, including the continued emergence of freshman running back Will Shipley. I had one insider tell me after the spring that he wasn’t sure how much of an impact Shipley would make this season – saying that all freshmen have a steep learning curve – but now says that Shipley is going to be a big part of the offense when the Tigers take on Georgia in Charlotte in 12 days.

We’ve heard that Shipley and Kobe Pace have been playing with both the 1’s and the 2’s, and that Lyn-J Dixon spent time with the same unit as quarterback Will Taylor in the scrimmage. A lot of that stems from the fact that Dixon knows the offense and is a capable blocker, so I am not reading too much into that right now. We will see what the depth chart looks like this week, but offensive coordinator Tony Elliott told us he loves what Shipley brings to the table.

"Even though he may not know exactly what he's doing, he's still going to go to the front of the line. So he has a confidence about himself, constant confidence in his ability, but it's not arrogance,” Elliott said. “And that's the confidence that he will put in the work, and he has the ability to learn. And he's going to give everything that he has every single play -- and not just here, but in everything that he does. Just an exceptional young man.

“You go look at his academic track record in high school 4.0 student, been a 4.0 student since he got here, he's fully bought in to the PAW Journey as a freshman, kind of understanding that concept where most freshmen don't quite understand what that concept is all about until later in their career when they have chances to be exposed to it. But he's dived in head-first and he wants to be a leader. He wants to be great. And that resonates in everything that he does."

Elliott also loves the fact that Shipley is unassuming and still rocks the Nike Air Monarch “dad shoes” that his father bought him in 7th grade. Shipley told us about the shoes earlier this year.

“Back in seventh grade, I needed some new shoes. Pops took me to Rack Room and bought them, $62 Rack Room shoes,” Shipley said, “He bought them a couple sizes big and made sure that I could wear them all the way through high school. And here I am first semester at Clemson still rocking them, always will, I'm a proud Monarch wearer.”

*As much as there is to love about the defense, there are question marks with the offense. Quarterback DJ Uiagalelei didn’t put together solid scrimmage numbers during the spring and didn’t have a “wow” outing in any of the August scrimmages. He’s battled some accuracy issues but came on at the end of camp and had perhaps his best scrimmage in the final one Thursday.

And while there is a lot to love about the wide receivers, it’s likely that youth will play a big part of the Tigers’ success this season. In looking back at last season, the Tigers lost 178 receptions in the trio of Amari Rodgers and Cornell Powell and running back Travis Etienne. The leading returning receiver from a year ago? EJ Williams, who caught 24 passes. Frank Ladson caught 18, Brannon Spector caught 16, Joseph Ngata caught seven, and then there was not a lot to report. Getting Justyn Ross back helps – he’s now the alpha dog in that group and the most experienced, but he hasn’t played in 19 months. Spector hasn’t played yet (COVID) in camp and Ngata has also missed significant time.

That means that freshmen Beaux Collins and Dacari Collins and veteran Ajou Ajou are all going to have to step up their game. Early on, however, the Tigers might have to rely on running the ball while this group gets settled.

And that leads us to the offensive line, which appears to be anything but settled at the center spot. Matt Bockhorst has drawn most of the first-team snaps at that spot while freshman Marcus Tate has slipped into the left guard spot. But I’ve been told that EVERYBODY is getting a look at different spots (including Tate at tackle) while the coaches try to find the best five.

Head coach Dabo Swinney admitted that there have also been some issues with the snaps.

"It's still a work in progress. I think all of them have done some good things. The biggest thing is consistency," Swinney said. "I think all of them physically can get the job done, and I think all three mentally can get the job done. But consistency with our snaps: That's the area we've got to make some strides in. You've got to be 100 percent, 99.9999999 percent when it comes to the C-Q exchange. That's an area I think we've got to clean up as we really hone in coming out of camp here."

Yes, this offense has playmakers galore, and Uiagalelei is going to be a good one. But right now this is a unit that has battled injuries and inconsistency, and we are likely to get into the season before a few starting spots are decided. I am not sure either offense is gonna light it up in Charlotte, but the good news is that Clemson has several more practices to get guys healthy and get some things settled along the line.

We will take a look at the defense later today.