ESPN Insider Article on reasons we can win title

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Re: ESPN Insider Article on reasons we can win title

May 20, 2013, 3:09 PM

From May 20-31, Insider's college football experts will be examining the national championship chances of the 10 teams with the best odds to win the BCS title this season, according to Brian Fremeau's post-spring projections.

Today, KC Joyner takes a look both at the path the Clemson Tigers could take to the national championship game, and the factors that could trip them up along the way.

Since their national championship victory over Nebraska in the 1982 Orange Bowl, the Clemson Tigers have fielded many strong clubs but have never claimed the top spot in an AP or BCS weekly ranking.

The Tigers are not likely to change that trend at the beginning of the 2013 season, as ESPN Insider Phil Steele projects Clemson to place No. 11 in the preseason top 25 and Mark Schlabach has them rated No. 12 in his latest top 25 ranking.

There is a good chance Clemson could ascend up those rankings, as ESPN Insider Brian Fremeau has projected the Tigers to finish first in the ACC Atlantic Division and to potentially end the year with as many as 11 wins. He gives them the best odds of any team to win the ACC, at 24 percent, and while their national championship chances aren't as strong as the rest of the teams we'll be profiling in the next two weeks, a zero- or one-loss season would absolutely put them in the title discussion.

So can Dabo Swinney's club turn that ascension into Clemson's second national championship? Let's take a look at the reasons both for why and why not.

Why Clemson can win the national championship
1. The offense is loaded … and the defense is better than you think
The Tigers are returning seven starters from an offense that last year claimed the incredible achievement of posting 101 team and individual offensive statistical records in a single season.

Chief among those returning starters is quarterback Tajh Boyd, whose 149.6 career passer rating ranks him only three rating points away from the top 25 all-time in Football Bowl Subdivision history (among quarterbacks with at least 500 career completions). Boyd also racked up 46 touchdowns last season, a total was only two fewer than Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel.

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Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Tajh Boyd is one of the top returning passers in all of college football.
His rate stats are very impressive as well. Against BCS conference competition, Boyd ranked sixth nationally in both yards per pass attempt and passer rating among BCS league QBs -- better than Manziel, Marcus Mariota, EJ Manuel, Geno Smith and Matt Barkley, just to name a few. When it comes to returning passers, he's right up there with the best of them.

Losing DeAndre Hopkins is a major blow but Martavis Bryant's 2012 metrics show that he has the ability to replace Hopkins as a downfield threat. That's before even mentioning Sammy Watkins, who has a very good chance of returning to his freshman year form as a junior (82 catches, 14.9 yards per catch in 2011).

The Tigers' run game will have to account for the departure of Andre Ellington, but Roderick McDowell's 9.0-yard mark in the good blocking yards per attempt (GBYPA, which gauges productivity on plays with good blocking) metric was actually higher than Ellington's 8.3-yard level in that category. Clemson also returns four starters (including All-ACC left tackle Brandon Thomas) from an offensive line that had a 52.8 percent good run blocking rate (GBR) that actually topped the 51.7 percent GBR posted by Alabama.

Even if the offense does lose a bit of a step from its record-setting pace, the Tigers' underrated defense should be able to make up for the regression. This group made huge improvements in yards allowed per play last year, as ESPN Stats & Information had them moving from a 6.03-yard level from August-October (ranked 92nd nationally) to a 5.03-yard mark from November-January (ranked 30th nationally).

Clemson also returns 32 sacks from last year's squad, a total that ranks second in the ACC and fifth in the country. The Tigers' sack percentage last season of 9 percent in BCS conference games ranked 10th in the country, better than the likes of LSU and Alabama.

2. The schedule is favorable for a run at the title game
Playing in the relatively weak ACC means any schedule would be potentially favorable but Clemson's 2013 slate goes more than a step further in that direction.

The Tigers have only two road games against conference foes that posted winning records last season. They also have the benefit of hosting division rival Florida State, a team that is returning a conference-low 10 starters and hasn't won at Death Valley since 2001. They do have a season-opening home test against Georgia, but that's a good time for them to be facing the Bulldogs. UGA is returning only three defensive starters and thus will be breaking in a whole new group of players on the road against the powerful Clemson offense.

The season-ending road game at South Carolina won't be easy, but the benefit of having two SEC opponents on the schedule is that if Clemson wins both, it'll boost their argument to make the BCS championship game.

3. Nearly every other top-10 team has significant concerns
The Tigers will have to make their share of personnel adjustments this season, but those pale in comparison to the adjustment levels that will have to be made by nearly every other team in the early top 10 rankings.

Texas A&M lost 12 starters from last year's team, including their all-time leading receiver, leading running back, an impact pass-rusher and all-conference blindside blocker.

Stanford will have to replace 44.5 sacks that were lost to graduation, which is by far the most in the FBS. Stanford also returns only 17.9 percent of its 2013 receptions, which is dead last in that category among teams from BCS conferences.

Georgia will have to replace the aforementioned eight defensive starters.

Florida is out 11 starters and is in the process of implementing major upgrades to an abysmal offense that ranked 103rd in total offense last year.

Oregon will be breaking in a new head coach -- and replacing a coach of Chip Kelly's caliber is easier said than done.

Louisville brings back a ton of talent, but the Cardinals also play in by far the weakest BCS conference, which is a factor that should give Clemson the tiebreaking advantage in the case of a close BCS call between these two teams.

Why Clemson won't win the national championship
1. The Tigers lost more talent than the lost starters total indicates
This team will probably go only as far as the passing game can carry it and they actually lost more firepower in that area than the returning starter numbers would indicate.

Clemson brings back only 50.6 percent of its 2012 receptions, a mark that ranks next to last in the ACC and 56th among BCS conference teams.

Bryant can help make up for that talent drain, but he had only 11 targets in games against BCS conference foes last year, so he is going to have to really step up in order to fully replace Hopkins, whose numbers were so dominant last year that he ranked second in my metric review of the top wide receivers in the 2013 NFL draft.

2. They don't have much room for error
Five of the past seven BCS title teams have won that honor despite having at least one loss on their season-ending ledger.

Given the relative weakness of the ACC, this is an avenue that will be difficult for the Tigers to take. A 14-0 season is likely going to be needed to bring the title trophy back to Clemson, even though the Georgia and South Carolina games will help boost the Tigers' strength of schedule.

But going 5-0 against Georgia, Florida State, South Carolina, in an ACC title game and the BCS national championship game is no easy task. There isn't a team in the country that would be favored to go 5-0 in those games and that is a big part of why Fremeau's most favorable regular season projection has the Tigers finishing with at least one loss.

3. Tajh Boyd is a mere mortal when facing ranked teams
Check out Boyd's splits versus ranked and unranked teams over the past two seasons:

Category Games Att Comp Comp % Yards YPA TD Int Passer rating
Ranked totals 8 281 157 55.9% 1887 6.7 16 7 126.08
Unranked totals 19 645 428 66.4% 5837 9.0 53 18 163.9
Source: cfbstats.com
Boyd is dominant when it comes to facing teams that aren't top-25-caliber but when he has to face a higher caliber of opponent, his numbers see a significant drop across the board. He'll need to break that trend this season in the Georgia, FSU and South Carolina games.

Bottom line
As daunting as any of those five potentially tough games will be, the biggest hurdle has to be the game against South Carolina. The Gamecocks currently have a four-game winning streak in that series for only the second time in the 110 meetings between these clubs, and they will be hosting this year's contest. In each of the past two years, Boyd's worst single-game passer rating was posted in the game against South Carolina, so even if he steps up against tough competition earlier in the year, the national title shot will likely turn on whether or not he can overcome the pressure of this rivalry tilt.

If Boyd does this, Clemson will go into the ACC title game on a roll and could very well end up playing for a BCS title. If Boyd falls short, it could be one of the more disappointing double-digit win seasons in recent memory.

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Re: ESPN Insider Article on reasons we can win title

Thanks.+1. Good, straightforward article for once.***

Re: ESPN Insider Article on reasons we can win title

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