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Why Clemson used to "Clemson"...
Nov 6, 2015, 4:02 PM
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It really wasn't that complicated, actually.
Clemson was infamous for torrid starts and late-season crashes, and for losing games we "shouldn't".
Folks, it really wasn't that complicated. Top to bottom, from 1999 to 2010, we were never an elite team.
Tommy Bowden and Rich Rod rolled in with their run-heavy spread attack from Tulane in 1999, and it was novel at the time. High-tempo, aggressive, featured a running QB. Woody Dantzler posted huge numbers...folks, go back and watch the tape, Woody was a good athlete and a winner and a competitor, but nobody would confuse him with, say, even Braxton Miller - who is no longer even starting at QB at Ohio State. Woody could lob up the deep ball to big dudes like Rod Gardner - who usually had 1-on-1's because they were so worried about Woody and Travis Zachary gashing them on the ground - but Woody was not an elite passer, or even close, and he ran a 4.6, not a 4.3. And if you look at our OL, it was small. Our defense was largely composed of 2/3-star guys who looked a whole lot like, say, the NC State defense of today. We were not a complete team, we just had a novel system college football wasn't really prepped for...and it tended to look like a swallow hitting a glass patio door when it ran into teams with really athletic, aggressive athletes in their front 7's...exactly like Rich Rod's offenses at Michigan and Arizona still do, actually. We mowed down the lesser opponents and the really good defenses stopped the O cold. We had a good scheme, we did not have great talent.
By 2003, we lucked into a future NFL QB in Charlie Whitehurst, who was somehow rated 3-stars by the recruiting services even though he had the size, NFL arm, NFL bloodlines, and NFL understanding, and we had gotten a couple 4-star WR's like Derrick Hamilton and Kelvin Grant...and we were also getting unexpected contributions out of 2-stars who turned out much bigger than expected, like Kevin Youngblood, JJ McKelvey, and later, Aaron Kelly. But we were still largely 2/3-star players across the roster, we just had a crazy-good passing game, which gave us a puncher's chance in games...and Clemson won some big games, and dropped some smaller ones, which is what you'd expect with such an unevenly talented roster.
Our first true "game-changer" was James Davis...who didn't come along until 2005. He was the first true-blue-chip, 50+ offer guy who could have gone anywhere...and chose to come to Clemson. The next year Dabo pulled off the recruiting coup of the century and stole CJ Spiller from Florida, and the year after that Andre Ellington quietly came along, giving Clemson the best 1-2-3 punch at RB...in Clemson history. "Thunder" and "Lightning" won a boatload of games for us, even though our passing game was busy getting Rob Spence'd, but the rest of the team was still largely 2/3-star type guys. Again, uneven roster...and we had the uneven results you'd expect with such unbalanced talent, looking like world-beaters one week and then losing to Duke the week after beating Miami in the Orange Bowl.
It really wasn't until 2010/2011 that Clemson's recruiting really took off. The WEZ project helped, but mostly Dabo got a bunch of quality recruiters out there into the world with the expectation that we were going to land the Big Dogs...and that's when Clemson finally started pulling down the 4/5-star guys, and stacking Top-15 classes atop Top-15 classes, which finally started giving us the depth and roster continuity to not just win 10+ games a season...but to keep winning 10+ each and every year. Also, in 2011, Clemson really got back to the wide-open spread attack we had sort of gotten away from under Brad Scott, Mike O'Cain, Rob Spence, and Billy Napier, and just started attacking teams again with tempo.
We didn't "Clemson" because we were flaky, though Tommy Bowden's sweaty, wide-eyed, gameday demeanor did not help much, IMHO. We Clemson'd too much mostly because our overall roster talent just wasn't there.
Anybody can still lose on any given Saturday, and Clemson's had some close calls this year. Evil juju may align and Clemson may lose yet again to FSU tomorrow, it happened in Tally last year. But Clemson is a world more consistent because we're simply more talented than we used to be, and we're more talented top-to-bottom. Teams now have to be almost perfect - or just really durn lucky - to beat us, and that's the biggest difference between Now and Then.
Just my own take.
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