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Just my perspective...
Sep 29, 2019, 7:24 PM
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(usual quoz Long Post warning. As ever, if you mislike many many words, Twitter's thataway. ----> )
I wasn't thrilled myself with how Clemson played this past month. But, if you've read any of my posts, for years a goodly number of them have included the words "Dabo's teams are always lousy in September for whatever reason."
Actually there's some obvious reasons - namely, that we play a gazillion players and that disrupts continuity and leads to a bunch of new-player mistakes, especially in Septembers, and then there's the fact that Tony Elliott's playcalling early on in seasons is so vanilla you can literally fit it on a dinner napkin...which, again, is exactly what happens when you're generating a gameplan that you have to get those 75 guys you're planning on playing - many of whom are new - prepped and repped and comfortable with. Plus...why show stuff early? Clemson always plans on a 15-game schedule anyhow, and Dabo & Company have always been more than willing to let other teams win the style points in September; they'll save their good stuff for November and December, thank you, and their very best stuff for January.
Still, this is obviously not a team firing on all cylinders right now. Should we worry?
Maybe a bit. A little fear and introspection is healthy after a good scare. There's some obvious holes we haven't filled yet - namely, we need a slot or a weapon at TE to emerge so we can better exploit the middle, and we've been a below-average team on third down because of that. Honestly among our receivers only Tee Higgins has really looked great; Justin Ross clearly isn't 100% and Amari Rogers has been hot and cold since his return. Ladsen and Ngata have flashed but aren't finished products yet. Our DL depth - especially at DT - is still iffy though the new guys are starting to emerge. And Trevor hasn't been awful but he has been pretty "meh" by Trevor's standards. So there's work to do.
I also think we're the hunted now, and that matters. Teams get up for us. Opposing fans show up for us and scream and yell and there's no downside for the other team because we're #1 and the 400-pound gorilla in the room; we're supposed to win and that means even keeping it close is a win for them. And coordinators are really familiar with us now because they've seen us in the playoffs about eighty times over the last five years...you know, when they were at home with nothing else to do but watch the truly big boys play. When The Chad brought his spread HUNH only Clemson and Auburn were running it; now it's everywhere in college football and defenses are adapting: going lighter, faster, and more multiple, disguising their coverages better, and they're leaning the right way on our RPO stuff nowadays, especially those tunnel screens. That happens when you win two out of the last three Natties, people pick up on your stuff.
Still - historically, though, we tend to do better once we hit October and really hit our stride in November. Keep in mind also football is as much about attrition as it is about x's and o's, and our depth really starts kicking in right about now and factoring huge in games later on - our guys actually already had notably less wear and tear and miles on their tires than UNC did because we do play so many guys and spread the abuse around. If it happens that we see UNC again at the end of November we will boat-race them. God, as they say, is almost always on the side of the big battalions.
So...panic? Not really. But we also clearly aren't the #1 team in the country at the moment, and that's probably a healthy place to be as well. Comfort is, as Nick Saban likes to say, rat poison to greatness. We're 5-0 and still very much in it, but we also aren't going to win any natties playing like we're playing and the players and staff will be very aware there's a lot of work to do between here and November.
At the end of the day, though - nobody wins any trophies in September, though you can lose them there. We didn't.
So let the talking heads talk. That's what they're paid to do, after all...and we hear this same stuff every September. Literally. But let's see who's still standing come playoff time. I will say I'd rather be us than Alabama - they're not running the ball well (they're only 57th in the country in rushing!) and their D just allowed 31 points to Mississippi State and is presently just 38th in the country (we're eighth!), and that's not a team that even makes the playoffs, much less wins them. And Tua is Tua - lethal when he can deal the ball around on slants to his fleet-footed wideouts and stand in the pocket and bomb away downfield, but he still predetermines where he's going with the ball before it's snapped and that'll kill him at some point too...whereupon there's only the #38-ranked D in the country and the #57 running game behind him to bail him out. That ain't your typical Nick Saban team, not even close. Whereas we pretty much look exactly like the usual Dabo team in September...which is to say, that big metaphorical big-block V-8 that roars in spots and sputters in others, and definitely is in need of a tune-up.
Just my. 02 worth.
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