Clemson left wondering if progress was an aberration

Cade Klubnik was among several Tigers to play over 100 snaps.

Ryan Kantor - Contributor - Monday, November 04 2024

Rock bottom. That’s where Clemson was when they came out of their open date last season and lost to Miami and then turned around and lost to NC State the next week. The Tigers were 4-4 and playing ugly football on the offensive side of the ball. With Notre Dame looming, it was only going to get worse.

It didn’t, though. Whether it was the infamous Tyler from Spartanburg call, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney challenging the team, or a player-led culture refusing to fold, the Tigers upset Notre Dame and then beat the four remaining lesser teams on the schedule to end the year with a five-game winning streak.

That success didn’t stop Swinney from making necessary changes to the coaching staff, most notably bringing in an elite offensive line coach, Matt Luke. While this season started with a dud against Georgia, the Bulldogs’ pedigree made that loss easy to forgive. Dominant performances against Appalachian State and NC State quickly shifted the narrative back to Clemson’s improvement. Entering the Louisville game Saturday night, Clemson was 11-1 since that rock bottom moment when they were saddled with a 4-4 record.

There was confidence Clemson, who was a 10-point favorite and boasted a 22-game win streak in home night games, would beat Louisville. Quietly, though, in the background, there was some question about the quality of the teams Clemson had been beating over the past 12 games. Aside from Notre Dame, the best wins down the stretch last season were a collapsing North Carolina squad (they lost five of seven to close the year) and 7-win Kentucky. In 2024, Clemson’s most impressive win is a road win at fringe-bowl team Wake Forest. As such, playing a good-but-not-great Louisville team would validate Clemson’s progress.

Instead, the Tigers came out of the open date flat. Louisville dared them to run the ball and proceeded to beat Clemson in the trenches when they tried. Clemson’s special teams failed to correct issues already seen earlier in the year with FG protection, and the Tigers never played with urgency as the clock and their playoff life ticked away. While perhaps not the same rock bottom as 4-4, in a way, it is more frustrating because the necessary steps to return to elite play seem even more elusive.

Clemson received the opening kickoff and immediately appeared uncomfortable. Their first two drives yielded three yards of offense and two punts. Meanwhile, Louisville moved the ball adeptly but settled for two field goal attempts – one of which missed. Clemson found the endzone on their third drive and it started to feel like they’d found their footing and would take care of business. The two teams battled somewhat evenly in what was a choppy, slow half marred by injury stoppages and sloppy play, until Clemson attempted a field goal with 1:43 left that would have sent the teams into halftime tied 10-10.

The 49-yard field goal attempt was blocked as the left side of Clemson’s line got blown up just as they did against Florida State. The staff failed to correct this issue, and it would cost them.

The blocked kick gave Louisville the ball with momentum at the Clemson 47. In one minute of game time, the Cardinals zipped down the field and scored a touchdown to extend their lead to 17-7. They outscored Clemson 23-0 over the middle portion of the game to build a 26-7 lead.

With 3:53 remaining in the third quarter and Clemson trailing by 19, the Tigers with no urgency dinked and dunked their way down the field for 13 plays and 68 yards. They reached the 11-yard line before the offense sputtered. Shockingly to me, the Tigers elected to attempt a field goal to cut the lead to 16, and astonishingly, this field goal attempt was also blocked.

A quick three-and-out gave the Tigers a sliver of hope as they started their drive with 10:41 left in the game, still down trailing by 19. They made no corrections to their tempo from the previous drive and took their time meandering down the field. The 5-minute 16-play drive yielded a touchdown, but it was so slow and plodding that it favored the Cardinals. The ball was routinely being snapped with under 15 seconds on the play clock – oftentimes under 10. It seemed to indicate a total lack of situational awareness. When asked about this, Swinney said: “[We] just didn’t get the calls in there, didn’t have quite the urgency in personnel, it was across the board.”

Worse yet, they had a chance to go for two to make it an 11-point game. This would allow them to close the deficit with a touchdown, two-point conversion, and field goal. Even if they failed, they’d still be down less than 14 and could win with two touchdowns, just as they would with a made PAT. That math eluded the coaches, and they kicked the PAT. When asked, Swinney said he didn’t even consider the two-point conversion.

After a failed onside kick (potentially thanks to a missed call), the Tigers surrendered another long rushing touchdown to put the game out of reach. The Tigers fell to Louisville for the first time ever, 33-21, and frankly, looked like the lesser team from the opening kickoff. They’ve lost after an open date in three straight seasons, which is a bad sign about their use of that extra practice time.

This loss puts Clemson outside the ACC Championship and playoff race, barring total chaos, but more importantly, calls into question how much real growth and progress has been made since that 4-4 rock bottom moment. Were they just beating up on bad teams?

Through the post-Trevor Lawrence struggles, there have always been tangible things one could point to that Swinney could change to solve them. While a little slower than many fans would have liked, he essentially did all of them. He benched DJ Uiagalelei for Cade Klubnik. He replaced Streeter with Garrett Riley and upgraded the coaching at offensive line and defensive end too. While he still hasn’t used the portal, he asked DE Coach Chris Rumph if he wanted add a transfer DE following Adam Kissayi’s departure, only to be told that Rumph was “happy with the depth and the people that we have on the team right now.”

So, after seeing both the coaches and players for Clemson get thoroughly beaten at home, what’s left to fix this? Perhaps this is the offseason Swinney leverages the transfer portal in a major way. He almost must, as they only have 14 recruits committed – the least in the top 45 of the 247 recruiting rankings. Can he maintain the culture and branding with such a reversal of course? If that’s not the answer, maybe there’s not really one for Clemson until revenue sharing comes (expected next July after the House v. NCAA settlement goes through). Perhaps this wild west of the NIL era isn’t one Clemson can compete in at the upper level or maybe this was just an off night for the Tigers. The coming weeks will reveal more, but at the moment, it appears the progress since that 4-4 rock bottom was illusory and the next steps unclear.