Clemson football: Talent gap has closed – everyone beware

The 2020 Clemson football team is the most talented roster that Clemson has ever had from top to bottom. To quote the great Stan Lee, “With great power, there must also come great responsibility”.

We all know how good the Clemson football coaching staff is, but this will also be the toughest coaching job that this staff will have had while at Clemson. Let me explain.

When there is a roster as talented as this, everyone believes that they should play. That is ingrained into who they are as elite athletes. Clemson football no longer just has the guys who were the best among their own high school teams, but they now have some of the greatest high school players of all time.

Sure, it’s easy to say you bought into the team and are doing everything that is best for the team, but it is completely different going an entire season playing fewer snaps than you are accustomed to or think you should. The greatest coaching job this coaching staff will do in 2020, is with the players off the field not on it.

Getting this talented roster to buy into the scheme and focus each other will be a lot tougher than in years past when the coaching staff was charged with getting players prepared to play at a level higher than many of them would have anywhere else. The Clemson football staff has done a great job getting the most out of every player that they signed and in some cases even getting them to the next level.

No coaching staff is college football does a better job at getting a player to play beyond where they believe that they can than this Clemson football coaching staff. Getting players to see beyond their own limits is a gift and one that shared across this entire staff.

In past years the coaching had to be creative to find ways to overcome their talent deficiency, this was the biggest reason you saw Venables change his scheme up at times in 2019 and go with a three-man front more than he ever would have. His strength was on the back-end. Looking ahead, this roster is loaded everywhere and simply keeping them focused will be the biggest challenge the coaching staff has and not allowing complacency to set in.

The talent gap is no longer an issue for Clemson, managing playing time and egos will be. It’s a great problem to have and one that signifies that Clemson truly is on the verge of accomplishing never seen before in college football history.