Richardson says Clemson offense finding its swagger

Quarterback DJ Uiagalelei throws Saturday against Wake Forest.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Sep 26 14:06:00 GMT-04:00 2022

CLEMSON – Kyle Richardson thinks the Clemson offense is starting to regain its swagger.

The Tigers racked up over 500 yards of total offense, and quarterback DJ Uiagalelei tossed five touchdown passes in the 51-45, double-overtime victory over Wake Forest last Saturday. Richardson, Clemson’s tight ends coach, and passing game coordinator told the media Monday that it’s important that the younger players don’t listen to the outside noise.

“These are still young guys we're talking about. And you can preach and preach and tell them, don't listen to the narrative or don't pay attention to this or pay attention to that,” Richardson said Monday. “And even for coaches, it's hard to just put yourself in a bubble and be protected from that. So you're not only trying to overcome some confidence issues within the building of, hey, we're going to be okay.”

This week, the offense takes aim at one of the best defenses in the league in NC State. The Wolfpack defeated the Tigers in 27-21 in overtime in Raleigh a year ago. Since then, it’s about getting that swagger back.

“We were just watching some films just a minute ago and it's like everything bad that could have happened last year, it felt like it happened,” Richardson said. “A wide open touchdown path and the ball gets tipped at the line of scrimmage. We get them to jump offsides, we got a wide open, easy free play for a touchdown and they blow it dead. It's just like those type of things just kept happening and then everybody on the outside telling you were no good. We spend a lot of time just talking confidence and getting that confidence back. And not only getting that confidence back, but once you get it back, have a little swagger about yourself. And that was not only for DJ (Uiagalelei), that was for every room on the offensive side.

“And we're slowly seeing that, and now we've got to preach consistency. So, the confidence is there and now we have to go put out consistent results, be consistently confident. So that's kind of the next step in this. But, yeah, I'm happy that they've listened to all the coaches and support staff in regards to, ‘we have the pieces of the puzzle.’ We just needed to start putting the puzzle together and don't worry about the pieces of the puzzle that's on the floor. We'll pick them up and start putting them together and that's kind of where we are right now.”

The offense is seeing results.

“You can practice all you want and you can talk all you want, but at the end of the day, it's a results business and they have to go do it on a big stage, especially at Clemson,” Richardson said. “And we had some success against Georgia Tech and we had some success against Furman and Louisiana Tech. But you go into a top-25 matchup on the road, they're the division champs. We didn't walk into that building with the crown. They had it and we had to go take it away from them on Saturday. And that's where you're going to start breeding this confidence, especially in the type of play that we had.

“We got off to a fast start and we didn't put our foot on their throat. That was the challenge on the sideline is, let's take this thing away from them right now. And we didn't do that. And that's something that we can build off of. But the flip side of it is we had some peaks and then we hit some valleys and they never flinched. Offensively, they were on the sidelines ready for the next drive. And whether that drive went good, whether it went bad, it didn't matter.”