Clemson football: 3 things the offense needed to accomplish on the bye week

Three things we need to see from the Clemson football offense on the bye week

2. Innovation in play-calling & game planning

It’s understandable that Clemson hasn’t been able to implement a ton of changes in the offense during game weeks.

The Tigers are creating a game plan based off what they have and, frankly, it hasn’t worked.

But, the bye week is a time for transformation. We’ve seen Clemson offenses transform themselves– at least to a point– over bye weeks before and that’s exactly what we need to see here.

It’s not to say that they’re going to come out running a completely new system. What it is saying is that there are things they can implement to be more innovative for the remainder of the season.

Want some practical examples? 

• More ‘window dressing’ prior to the snap
• Running the WR jet sweep more often and then building RPOs off that motion
• Showing a different formation just to confuse a defense, even if the play itself doesn’t change
• Running some crossing patterns over the middle of the field– that would surprise a defense
• Get the running game going outside the hashmarks

These are small things that honestly are already incorporated in one extent or another that can be amplified during the bye week to create the illusion of a more innovative offense.

We understand that your personnel problems don’t just go away overnight. We understand that there are still going to be missed throws, missed blocking assignments and dropped passes, but if you can at least give the defense some extra things to think about– and you do that by showing different looks and changing what the defense has to account for– it can at least make things a little easier on the offense to get going.