Clemson football: With Jackson Carman gone, young OL have to step up
Clemson football needs young offensive linemen to step up
The Clemson football program has received some good news on players returning, but one veteran who has announced he would be leaving for the NFL is starting LT Jackson Carman.
It was expected that Carman would declare for the NFL Draft following his junior year and it will be interesting to see what kind of response he gets from professional organizations when they begin looking at him.
There is a sense that Carman could play right tackle or even move to a guard position at the next level, but nothing has been considered ‘consensus’ at this point.
With Carman gone, though, it means Clemson football will have even more work to do up-front as the Tigers attempt to solidify an offensive line group that was shaky at best during the 2020 season.
That means we’re going to need to see the young guys step up.
Clemson football has talent and depth along the offensive line and at tackle, but that has to develop into execution on the field
It doesn’t take someone who has been around football for 100 years to be able to figure that the offensive line had troubles last season.
Whether that was scheme, execution or even how defenses played against the Tigers, the truth of the matter is that the group continued to struggle through the majority of the season with just a few exceptions.
As we head into 2021, though, the focus is going to be on developing both talent and depth on the line so that we see a more polished and physical group up-front. Matt Bockhorst, Will Putnam and Jordan McFadden are all back and we haven’t heard an official word from Cade Stewart yet.
The belief is that we’ll see Walker Parks take over the starting LT spot, but there’s an amount of depth that needs to be developed, as well.
It’s time that we hear of some of those young guys who have been in the system- like Rayburn, Trotter and Boateng- step up. It’s time for Paul Tchio, Mitchell Mayes and Bryn Tucker to get their chances to solidify this group and to give the Tigers a legitimate rotation at the position that simply wasn’t there last year.
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It all starts up-front and the success of Clemson football depends on these guys developing chemistry and getting better as a unit.