random Saturday football thoughts

May 7, 2016, 4:25 PM

Again, this is just me rambling. This tends to get long, so if you like Twitter posts, this ain't one.

Depth at QB leads to depth at...safety? Why not?
If you go back and watch him fling the ball on film, you really do get the sense it's going to be very, very hard for anybody to hold Zerrick Cooper out of the #2 QB spot for long. He just throws so well and has Deshaun Watson's almost casual, utterly cool demeanor in the pocket. If that turns out to be the case, what would you do with Kelly Bryant? In that case, you've got a 6'3", 225+ pound athlete who runs sub-4.5 and is easily one of the most athletic cats on the team. What do you do with him? WR? Safety? LB? There's some openings at the safety spot and it surely didn't take TJ Green long to make some Very Large NFL dollars once he decided to move there. Just sayin'. Of course, football being the way it is, Kelly will probably come out slinging like Achilles in fall practice and leave egg all over the face of the folks who doubted him...stuff tends to go that way.

This is not a slap on Bryant, by the way. He has spectacular tools and is obviously improving but he still looked raw this Spring. There is nothing whatsoever raw about the way Cooper throws. He looks genuinely elite...like, right now. How Cooper's carrying just a low-end 4-star rating per the services leaves me scratching my head. Cooper looks, to my eyes, like he's probably more than that...like, a whole lot more. 6'4", mobile, athletic, can make every throw in the book, flick it down the field - with touch! - 60 yards with seemingly a flick of the wrist...uhm, is that not what a 5-star guy looks like? Whatever. Maybe it's just me.

Our RB corps looks like an actual corps.
What does it do for Clemson's rushing attack to have options? Everybody loves the Wayne Train but relying on one guy to stay healthy and carry for 1,500+ again on his lonesome is...spooky, when you have national title aspirations. The return to health of Adam Choice is huge to me because he was looking a viable starter before he tore up his knee...Tyshon Dye has always had upper-echelon talent but owing mostly to injuries he's never really put it together and CJ Fuller looks solid and workmanlike, not a game-breaker or feature guy. But Choice's return, if he is healthy, adds the much-needed depth this RB corps lacked last year. I do think Tavien Feaster makes some impact - maybe a lot of impact, especially down the stretch - but he's coming off major shoulder surgery and will probably be limited in camp, which could slow his acclimation into the offense early on in the season.

Meet Deshaun Watson. I think he can be a pretty good QB now that he has people to throw to.
I don't think people really realized how limited Clemson's WR corps was down the stretch last year. Artavis Scott was carrying a knee injury that really limited his explosiveness, Mike Williams was out, Deon Cain was suspended, and Ray Ray McCloud was hurt after midseason and never was close to 100% thereafter. We survived it because of the depth we had at the position, but when 4 of your top 6 receiving targets are missing or severely limited, that's a lot of firepower, gone. What does this offense look like when you add those guys back into the equation, healthy? You likely get an offense that posts Tecmno Bowl numbers, is what you get.

That Thundering Herd of Elephants Up Front....
Is it just me, or does Clemson's OL look, well, genuinely huge this year? Guillermo and Crowder have always been big boys in the 330+ range, but now they're joined inside by Taylor Hearn - who is listed at 6'5", 330 himself - and we've got those prize tackles from last year, Hyatt and Fruhmorgen, who held up as skinny reeds as true freshmen but will probably play at 300+ this year. Add in the fact that Clemson's OL was lining up and whipping people last year - for maybe the first time since the Fry Guys and Nathan Bennett were playing almost a decade back - and you really start liking this OL. They're big, they're nasty, they're intelligent and technically sound, they're whipping people up front, and they can even pull and get down the field and get after you on the second and third levels. That's a lot to like. It took him awhile, but Robbie Caldwell has finally re-tooled this OL to the level we thought he'd get it to when he was first hired on...he even had a dominant OL at Vanderbilt, for cryin' out loud. It was always more than a little confusing to me that a guy with Caldwell's track record wasn't putting a dominant unit on the field; now that it's all his guys and his preferred blocking scheme, I am no longer confused. Robbie's obviously still got it.

So...
I'll muse on defense later, but looking at the O...well. If I was a DC looking at this Clemson offense, I'd be spiking my coffee with something stronger than half-and-half. It looks, anyhow, like an offense as loaded as that 2004 Southern Cal crew that had Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, LenDale White, etc....just one of those units you just sort of kick back, watch, and enjoy the show...and then watch fly off the draft boards come next April. As they like to say, you can only draft one first-rounder every year, but in college you can have as many as you can convince to sign.

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

Appreciate the kudos, but "wisdom" is a strong word. I, ah, assuredly ain't wise, if you get my drift.

I'm an avid fan who writes pretty well. That's it. I like talking football. Again, that's it.

So these are just opinions. If yours differ, you could well be right. Probably are.

I'm not sure who "Mark" is. I know Denzel Johnson was a 4-star guy carrying a 2-star rating owing mostly to his grades...nobody thought he was going to qualify, but Clemson stuck with him and got a bonus at the end of last signing class. I think if Denzel Johnson develops - and our guys tend to develop, since our coaches think in terms of player development instead of just always trying to recruit the ready-out-of-the-box polished product - he's an eventual starter at CB or more likely safety. Anybody could see the raw tools on display with Johnson this Spring - he runs well, he's got size and mass, he hits with enthusiasm, he's athletic and can break down and explode through his hips when he strikes you and he's not easily misdirected in the open field. So physically - more than good enough, and you see why the staff stuck with him. One thing I notice about cover guys is the "radius" they seem to play in relative to whoever they're covering, along with just the separation their guy gets...his radius was still too big, meaning, he was still giving himself way too much of a cushion, the way inexperienced, uncertain young guys do, but the separation his man was getting wasn't glaring. He was sticking, and running, even with our WR's, and that's a very good sign. If you can stick with our guys, there aren't many WR corps in college football that are going to trouble you. So I think he's got the goods. I also think he's probably a year away.

As for ST's - I will refrain judgment. Probably Dabo's best trait, in my mind, is you often see him get "had" once on some things...but he's got a learning curve that goes straight up. You seldom (if ever) see him get beat the same way twice. He acknowledges his mistakes, he learns from them, he fixes them. They still looked like a clown show this Spring, though, so until I see our ST's looking not slow-and-special, I will remain worried.

The new coaches strike me as position-coaches-in-waiting. Dabo has done an amazing job holding his staff together - you can tell these guys really want to be here, don't particularly want to be anywhere else - but at some point, if you keep winning 17 games in a row and punching with Alabama in the National Title game, other programs are going to come in for your staff with big dollars in hand.

Dabo, as usual, seems a step ahead. I think he's identified (correctly) that elite high school coaches will make elite college coaches if you groom them (coaching, after all, is coaching), and so he went out and proactively scooped up the next Guz Malzahn or Chad Morris from the high school ranks...the Rock Hill guy for offense, and Mickey Conn for D. Just my take is, he intends to give them an "acclimate" year, and when some of our senior coaches get those seven-figure deals they're invariably going to get, he's got proven veteran coaches - not still-wet-behind-the-ears-GA's - on hand ready and acclimated to the system ready to step in. If you look at the thing that tends to kill off dynasties, Brain Drain is usually one of the main reasons. Coaching staffs get offered head-coaching gigs, and eventually, you're left with a staff that just isn't near as good as the one that left. I think Dabo intends to get ahead of that, and hiring the cream from high school ranks, especially when they get that year to acclimate and aren't thrown into the fire all at once, strikes me as a very good idea.

random Saturday football thoughts

Good stuff man. Q are you as excited about the return of

Re: Good stuff man. Q are you as excited about the return of

Love your wisdom looking at the heart and soul

Re: Love your wisdom looking at the heart and soul

Re: Love your wisdom looking at the heart and soul

It took a while to recruit talent/size for Caldwell

Those who lobbied to fire him should be ashamed.

IMO

Always enjoy Q's Expert take since he knows his stuff...

You have a broken back.

Re: You have a broken back.

Re: random Saturday football thoughts

Re: random Saturday football thoughts

TigerBoard POTD