Clemson vs Duke 9/4 8 pm

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Clemson doesn’t have a Quentin Johnson on their team, i think they will end up alright but with dabo being outdated and their skill positions are mid there margin of error is lowering year by year.
 
whatever signs of life they had died last week ...flatlined.

Clemson is recruiting at a high level STILL. They are currently ahead of us with 5 less recruits.
Their bag game has always been different than the regular and sec bag games...they have always been specific.

They pretty much drop bag how we played nil this year.

Their issue is on offense and the creativity of it.

In hindsight look back at this game and them leaving 20+ pts off the scoreboard which left tot he lost.

I see them still being a tough out..could see them beating fsu in 3 weeks.
How much of their recruiting ranking is “It’s Clemson”, ala Larry Coker as the wheels fell off towards the end of his tenure. It’s beyond obvious that Clemson have been evaluating terribly for years, especially on the offensive line side. Duke was not only bullying them up front, they were running away from Clemson as well. They don’t even look the same anymore, lots of guys with no NFL future playing significant roles for Clemson now, compared to 5 years ago.
 
The qb is putrid, are they scared to let him throw the ball past 10 yards?
He looked like the next one last year. All of a sudden GR comes in and he looks lost. I'm guessing it was just a case of first game in a new offense and the QB/OC figuring it out. No way they have that kind of performance again going forward.
 
He signed on to run Clemson’s offense, not install his own scheme.

He knew what he was signing up for.
Don’t get me wrong, I know they were still running their traditional RPO at the start but when they tried any Air Raid action when they were trying to play catch up they couldn’t get it going.

If you’re Riley, why take the job to run something completely different from your expertise?
 
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How much of their recruiting ranking is “It’s Clemson”, ala Larry Coker as the wheels fell off towards the end of his tenure. It’s beyond obvious that Clemson have been evaluating terribly for years, especially on the offensive line side. Duke was not only bullying them up front, they were running away from Clemson as well. They don’t even look the same anymore, lots of guys with no NFL future playing significant roles for Clemson now, compared to 5 years ago.
definately not Coker level.

We play them this year so we will see it up close.

They never had elite offensive line talent...i mean we put more nfl ol in the league than them recently.
That being said this was their starting line the other night.

This may be their best graded ol. I mean sh*t they ran for 200.

In my opinion they are really really good to elite in the trenches.
They are avg all of a sudden at the skills especially wr. Where Antonio Williams who was a tf last year was seen as their best wr and honestly he isnt the elite their used to. Like someone else stated i ay take our wr room over theirs. Ladson likely is wr#2 their if he stays

Im not gonna post dl as thats their strength, and they actually have good backers now.

DBS have been where you can have them again as well.

Lets just say this team would look alot different with Keon Coleman as wr#1 WITH Antonio Williams and company over trotting out Cole Turner or whomever else.

Also Will Shipley is overratted and ive always said so.
 
Clemson 247 board is crazy. Seems more than a few of them were predicting something like this loss was coming. Dabo's coaching staff has been under fire.....

Coaching experience prior to Clemson

Wes Goodwin: First coaching job
CJ Spiller: First coaching job
Tyler Grisham: First coaching job
Lemanski Hall: First coaching job
Kyle Richardson: High school
Mickey Conn: High school
Thomas Austin: 2 years at Georgia State

This is where the problem lies for the past couple of years. And that falls at Dabos feet.
This is anadodal. If you look and listen to Dabo, it has been his coaching philosophy from day 1 to hire and promote from within the Clemson family. He hires former players as grad assistants and they move up the tree within the program over the years. He wants Clemson guys who know the culture and can keep the train moving. This keeps the culture and continuity the same as well as the system and scheme.

No one was complaining about his model when they were winning championships.

What Dabo is missing is Venables and Elliot. He had them both as DC and OC for nearly a decade.

Last year for the first time, Dabo fired his OC and brought in an outsider from TCU. The Broyles Award winner. Pause.

In my opinion, their offense doesn't have the generational talent that they've had in the past. They can't dominate opponents like years past. Couple that with a new OC who's play calling looked suspect, and you get what we saw against Duke.

Even with the suspect offense, Clemson turned the ball over 3 times. Two of which were literally inside the 10 yard line. Had they scored on those 2 drives, the outcome might have been different.

The funny thing is the Clemson game looked much like our game against Duke last year. We got beat down, but it was largely due to the 8 turnovers we had. That is the secret sauce for Duke. They are competitive, don't make mistakes, and win the turnover battle. However, the Clemson game was bit of an anomaly as Duke was making mistakes and had turnovers. They just had fewer mistakes and turnovers than Clemson.

The game became a blowout because once Duke was up by 2 scores and time was running out, the Clemson defense quit playing hard. Even they are not immune to what we saw our team do last year.

Clemson has a good team. Enough talent to win 9-10 of their remaining games. It looks like their offense is going to hold them back. Even with better play calling, they just don't have superior difference makers. Their offensive line is the weakest link. I said so preseason. They won't be able to run the ball against good defenses like Miami, FSU, ND, and maybe NC State. They will struggle because their WRs don't/can't get separation and no OL push running the ball. They could have a 9 to 10 win season or wind up 6-6 with losses to Duke, FSU, Miami, ND, UNC, and South Carolina. This could happen and is more likely to happen because Clemson is going to struggle to score points. After they get 3 losses, I think they throw in the towel. It's hard to motivate a team who's conference and CFP aspirations are flushed down the toilet.

The ACC is there for the taking. We'll see how it plays out.
 
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This and the new clock rules can’t be under-stated.

This makes the game way closer to the NFL where turnovers especially in the redzone and coming away with no points on multiple trips are even more costly.
I would look at this as a positive. CFB fans love to complain about the small elite tier of programs in the CFP every season. They overwhelm most teams with talent, and excellent coaching. Anything than potentially narrows the gap should be viewed as a good thing, not a bad thing.
 
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