Five things we wish we could change about the 2020 Clemson football season
There’s no doubt that the 2020 Clemson football season has been one of the weirdest in program history.
Playing amidst a pandemic has created challenges and difficulties for the Tigers- and every other program around the nation- that simply weren’t present before.
It’s been a strange year and there are things we wish we could change.
As we continue to look back at the regular season for Clemson football, here are five things we wish we could change.
5. The pandemic, obviously
We’re going to go ahead and get the obvious one out of the way first. Obviously, if we could change the pandemic, that would be the thing we’d want to change most.
Just talking strictly from a football perspective, it’s been weird seeing players and teams play week-to-week without any guarantee that the next week they’d be able to play due to testing and contact tracing.
It’s been sad to see College Football games played without capacity crowds. It’s changed the atmosphere. It’s changed the way we view the game. Even with Clemson football having 19,000 in the stands this fall- and that was a blessing- it certainly was still different and not as fun as seeing a full-capacity crowd cheering on the Tigers.
We saw road games this year with no fans in attendance. We saw a game canceled. Of course, the whole pandemic is the biggest thing we would change.
Now, let’s look at some football things we would change.
4. James Skalski’s injury
Of course, you never want anyone to get injured.
Frank Ladson Jr., Tyler Davis, Joseph Ngata, Mike Jones Jr., Jake Venables, Justyn Ross. These are all injuries that we wish wouldn’t have occurred and that none of these guys would’ve missed time in any capacity.
That being said, there’s just something about what James Skalski means to the defense.
When Skalski is on the field, the defense plays with more confidence. The rushing defense is better. There’s more leadership and a greater comfort.
When he’s gone, linebackers look out of place at times and the Tigers have struggled to shutdown the run against solid offensive lines.
3. The loss to Notre Dame
You never want to see a loss and that’s why if we could change it, we’d love to see Notre Dame flipped to a win.
Fighting Irish fans have been holding the win over the heads of Clemson football fans for quite some time and there would’ve just been something special about the Tigers going into South Bend and picking up a win with their backup quarterback and missing several defensive starters.
That being said, this loss will mean very little as long as the Tigers come away with rightful revenge this time around when the two teams match up in Charlotte.
2. The offensive line, particularly for Travis Etienne’s sake
If there’s one area of the Clemson football team that we wish we could change, it’s the offensive line.
It’s not a shot at this group or to say that they haven’t developed and improved, but it’s certainly a little disappointing to see Travis Etienne return for his senior year and he very well may not break the 1,000 yard rushing total for the season.
Just for Etienne, we would’ve loved to see him be able to play a final season behind an experience offensive line, particularly in the interior.
1. Taking South Carolina off the schedule
The biggest thing we wish we could change? Taking South Carolina off the schedule. Especially as of late.
South Carolina Gamecocks are now flying high again following the firing of Will Muschamp and the hiring of their next ‘savior’ in Shane Beamer.
They certainly wouldn’t been crowing as loud in early December if the two teams had played the Saturday after Thanksgiving as they should.
Clemson was robbed of an opportunity to extend its streak over South Carolina and now Gamecock fans are coming out of the woodwork and acting as if their program is somehow relevant again.
Really, it’s all because they didn’t have the opportunity to suffer that season-ending crushing defeat to Clemson that they had gotten so used to.