My early expectations for the season.

Aug 19, 2018, 12:51 PM

For the first time ever, I actually expect us to go undefeated during the regular season.

I expected us to lose at least one regular season game every year previously. What's different?

1. Our schedule makes us the clear favorite in every game.

Going through the schedule...

Furman -Clemson's program has reached a point a few years ago that the absolute worst case scenario doesn't involve losing this game.

Texas A&M- Program in transition, and we have more talent. Jimbo is a great coach, but his FSU teams had better talent than this particular team. Give Jimbo a few years and this game would be scary, but I think we have the big advantage of players and the establishment of our system.

GSU- This game could potentially be a threat IF it was GSU a couple of years ago. Under Monken (current Army coach who vastly improved their program) GSU beat a decent Florida team in the Swamp and ran all over an elite Alabama defense. Under Willie Fritz GSU took UGA to overtime (had them beat) and a last-minute fluke fumble call kept them from beating Georgia Tech in 2014. But their coach last year was one of the worst in the history of college football and their program couldn't pony up for a serious replacement. Clemson will murder GSU easily.

Georgia Tech- Obviously Paul Johnson has had his success against us when we least expect it, especially in Atlanta. Since 2005 Clemson is 1-6 against GT away from home. Paul Johnson is 4-1 against Dabo outside of Death Valley. But Brent Venables seems to have Paul Johnson's offense figured out. Don't sleep on Paul Johnson though. As someone who followed him as a national championship coach at Georgia Southern and a miracle worker at Navy, Paul Johnson is a genius. He is capable of shocking us again. I believe the odds are in favor of Clemson's superior talent, and our own genius, Brent Venables, being the deciding factor. The one fear I have is how the loss of our best Linebacker, Dorian Odaniel, will change the nature of this game. As we should know from experience with GT, it's not about being faster and stronger than GT, it's about being disciplined and moving in the right direction with confidence. Dorian Odaniel was an absolute braniac when it came to interpreting a developing play. We benefited from this against GT to the point that we shut them down, whhich is not common, even from teams with superior athletes. I know we have talented Linebackers, but will our leadership at that position help us avoid mistakes against Paul Johnson's mind-tricks? Our D-line will thoroughly dominate in this game, but it has in nearly every game we have lost to them. Brandon Thompson, Grady Jarret, Andre Branch, etc etc would routinely win 1-on-1 battles against the GT line but it doesn't matter. Linebackers and safetys are the key in this game. And other than UGA, Paul Johnson wants to beat us more than anyone else, to prove he still can. Either way, I think Clemson avoids the upset here. Our offense should be able to score more than theirs, by double digits.

Syracuse -Revenge at home. They will not surprise us. They will not run on us. They will not cause us to run out of Quarterbacks. Easy win.

Wake Forest- Dave Clawson is actually a dang good coach. They quietly have won two bowls in a row. They beat Texas A&M last year and a ranked Temple the year before. Wake is not a joke. I would consider this to be like one of Jim Grobe's earlier teams, before people figured him out. But the talent gap is massive. I consider us to be a heavy favorite here.

NC State- I don't know about you, but NC State has become my most hated opponent other than SCAR. Their coach is an absolute @ss. Screw that guy. But, he knows how to get his guys ready to threaten us. We escaped our game with them the last two years. They were a fluke missed FG from preventing our 2nd national championship and they were still in the game until the very end last year. We were a much more talented team both times, but they executed well (for the most part) and their gameplan was tailored to us, while our's was not to them. But, NC State lost a lot of their best players. We are at home, and we know to take them seriously. I like our odds here.

FSU- Parting with Jimbo may have been necessary, but in the short term it will do more harm than good. The guy is an excellent coach and bringing FSU back to prominence right in the middle of the ACC being considered a borderline P5 conference was massive accomplishment. They had terrible luck last year and I don't think it was mostly a reflection of Jimbo's coaching ability. Willie Taggart may end up even better, but the odds are strong that they take a step back (or two) in his first year. Different system, different culture; this will lead to growing pains. Clemson is a machine right now. We will be up for this game.

Louisville- Petrino and Van Gorder (Louisville DC) are two examples of coaches who are callous opportunists who have left anger in their wake. They have demonstrated success and utter failure at different times of their careers. I know they are capable of scaring us, but their talent should not match up with ours. Their QB effeciency usually dictates their level of success. Their defense is talented enough to force turnovers and Petrino is smart enough to lead a talented QB to poke holes in nearly any back 7. I trust our DL will be key in this game. A quick passing game will not be enough to outscore us. I expect our Offense to overcome whatever they throw at us.

Boston College- This team always scares me. Not because they are smarter than us, faster than us, stronger than us, or more athletic. But they are the toughest team there is. And when you are tough, you have a punchers chance. OK, I don't think they can beat us. But I think they can stress us out. Aj Dillon (BC RB) is good enough to play anywhere. I mean that, he really is. If their O-line plays like a normal BC Oline then we could be in for a long day/night. AJ Dillon will make plays. He did so with a patchwork Oline last year. Remember how Syracuse ran on us last year and nobody could figure out how or why? That will be BC this year, I think. They are feeling positive up there this year. They feel like they are stacking up some pent-up momentum. They believe this is their "shock the world" year. So, we should win, but this is a classic "Why am I so stressed out" game.

Duke - Did anybody notice Duke last year? They blew out a 17th ranked Northwestern 41-17 and won their bowl game 36-14. They didn't beat any elite teams, and I don't expect them to this year. Like a lot of these other teams, they are good but not great. I do not think they have the horses to threaten to beat us, but they are good enough to require our attention until late in the game. We have our rivalry game coming up 7 days afterwards, so we won't be getting the same level of "rest" before the rivalry that we have enjoyed the last few years. This Duke is not quite Spurrier Duke, but it's also defiantly not Ted Roof Duke either. We win by double digits.

The gross people - So, we are a vastly superior program and academic institution. But that won't guarantee that we win this game. I know it's cute that they think they have better WRs than we do (they don't) or that they have a better QB than we do (they don't) but their WR's are good enough to score on any team if the throw is good. We have been extremely deep in Jake Low-Rentley's head and I hope we continue to be so, but they do have horses down there. Beating SCAR 5 times in a row isn't exactly easy. Beating them 4 in a row is cake, as we have done it 5 times since 1980, but we have not beaten them 5 in a row since 1940. We had two undefeated seasons (48, 81) and two national chamionships (81,16) since then, but no 5-peats. Our defense should continue to exert its dominance. All that is to say, it's going to be awesome when we get that 5-peat because both our offense and our defense is clearly superior to any threat they can throw at us.

So looking at our schedule, there is not a single team that is even with us. In year's past there were one or a couple teams that we were not sure who should have the advantage.

2. The greatest defensive line in the history of college football. Having an elite defensive line means that nobody can manhandle our defense. If nobody can manhandle our defense then nobody (currently on our schedule) can blow us out. If nobody can blow us out then the worst case scenario is someone squeaking by. Because our offense looks even better than last year, we could theoretically outscore other good offenses if we had to. The balanced dominance that we have makes the odds so much lower for an inferior team to outscore us. If our OLine improves, we may not even have a close game until the ACCCG.

3. Brent Venables is still on our coaching staff. The guy is amazing. I have so much trust in his ability to put our defense in the best possible position.

4. Depth at QB. If Kelly Bryant goes cold, our coaches are not going to be as hesitant to play the next man up. Between our 3 QB's one of them will likely play well enough to lead our monstrously talented team to victory.

5. Player leadership. Christian Wilkins, Kelly Bryant. Both have proven that they have earned the respect of a collection of elite talented young men. We have them both back.

6. Lon-term establishment of our system and unusual staff continuity. Keeping a staff together like this is extremely rare. It is a family that knows how each other thinks.

Conclusion, if we lose a regular season game I would be more surprised this time than I have ever been surprised before. And I remember 2004 Georgia Tech. Still can't wrap my mind around that.