Clemson Football: RPOs are great; designed plays may be better
The Clemson football offense clicked at a higher-level Saturday against the Florida State Seminoles than at any point earlier in the season.
Even though the Clemson football offense has scored a ton of points this season, the vast majority of fans have noted that the Tigers have looked out of sync.
The offense scored, but it was almost as if they were just scoring because they were too talented not to. That changed Saturday, though, when they seemingly attacked the Florida State defense and came away with 45 points, as a result.
The truth is that Clemson football could’ve chose how many points it scored against the Seminoles. The Tigers easily could’ve been up 42-0 at halftime had there not been a few minor miscues. Dabo Swinney called the dogs off in the second half instead of electing to score a few more touchdowns with his starting unit.
So, what was different between this past week and some of the weeks prior? Well, the answer is two-fold: Play-calling and Execution.
Trevor Lawrence didn’t miss on too many passes or try to do too much Saturday afternoon. Travis Etienne had running lanes and the coaches prioritized the run. After the game, Tony Elliott told the media that the Tigers elected to call more designed run plays and less RPOs (run-pass-option). Is that the answer?
RPOs are a part of this Clemson offense and they’ll still play an important role, but the Tigers looked much smoother just calling designed plays. Instead of wasting plays with RPOs that led to quick throws to the sideline, the Tigers elected to just hand the ball off to Travis Etienne and Lyn-J Dixon and let them go to work.
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This also opened up the passing game, which featured less WR screens and back-shoulder fades and more passes over the middle and designed routes. The talent of the offense was on display Saturday in a much different fashion than what we saw earlier this season and that will likely continue to be the trend as we head into the rest of October and into November.