Clemson football will take on the reigning ACC Coastal Champion Virginia Cavaliers Saturday.
After their first two games to start the season, we are waiting to see a truly dominant Clemson football performance from start to finish. They have looked very good and there have been areas that they have dominated but not every group can say that.
People get lost in scores and stats and think that those reflect domination when in fact all those areas reflect is the talent level within the Clemson football program.
In order to see complete domination of the Cavaliers on Saturday, these are the three groups that have to play a complete game.
Offensive line
When you replace 80 percent of your offensive line, it is going to take time for them to build chemistry. Add in the fact that they only got half of their spring practice, no summer workouts, and less than 10 days of summer camp, and what we see should be expected for the most part.
However, what cannot happen to this offensive line is what transpired against Citadel. The starting offensive line was unable to reset the line of scrimmage on the Citadel side of the ball. When Clemson was in short-yardage situations they were unable to move a defensive line that was on average 70 pounds lighter.
The defensive lines will be much bigger, faster, and stronger as we move forward and this group has to assert their size and strength.
Clemson football Wide Receivers
Other than senior receiver Amari Rodgers, this group has been highly inconsistent through two games.
The talent is there for this group to be the best group in the country. However, terrible route running and dropped passes have already plagued this group. Those two areas need to be crisper this week if the Clemson football offense is going to reach its full potential.
Frank Ladson Jr.had a much better showing in week two than he did in week one and will hopefully be able to build off of that. We heard a lot about fifth-year senior Cornell Powell and are waiting for him to break out and show what he did over practice and scrimmages.
Joseph Ngata had a decent week one but missed the Citadel game. E.J. Williams is going to a special player and will be a favorite target of backup quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei in the future and fellow freshman Ajou Ajou has the physical tools to be elite but has to put it together on the field as drops have really plagued him.
We will see all of these players Saturday night in Death Valley and hopefully, they will have benefited from an early off week.
Clemson football Secondary
This is a group that we have yet to see at full strength, so it is hard to judge them.
Week one against Wake Forest, Derion Kendrick was out as was Mario Goodrich. In week two, Kendrick was back but Goodrich was out as were several other key members of the group.
While we don’t yet know who will be available this week, hopefully, this will be the first time this season that the entire secondary will be available and give us a chance to see how good they can be as a group. There is a lot of talent in the group but we have to see them together and what the rotation is going to potentially look like, especially with a potent Miami offense led by the current Heisman Trophy favorite, D’Eriq King.
Virginia is a shell of what they were a year ago, but Saturday will be important for this group as they are the weakness of a defense that defensive coordinator Brent Venables says is nowhere close to as dominant as they can be.