Clemson Football: Takeaways from Championship Game

One may wonder what a Clemson football fan could take away from Monday night’s debacle of a National Championship game where Georgia blasted TCU 65-7, other than realizing that the Bulldogs are a machine right now.

I admit that once it was 31-7, I flipped the channel a few times because obviously, the game was over.

I did flip back several times to see a Georgia player run over a Horned Frog (this applies to both sides of the ball), like an 18-wheeler over, oh say, a frog.

Still, I found myself drifting back in my mind to 2016 and 2018 and trying to figure out what’s happened to Clemson over the last few years, where they look so different than they did back then.

In the end, it really boiled down to a few things for me, though I’m sure smarter minds will delve deeper into coaching, nepotism, the transfer portal, NIL, and all the things the internet loves.

First up would be recruiting.  While Clemson’s has been good, Georgia’s has been great.  While it’s nice to talk about Top 10 classes, there are many spots between 10 and 3, 2 and 1 that can, and have, made a difference.

Also, it’s not just the ratings and rankings, but the type of player the Bulldogs are getting and developing, both skills-wise and physically.

I remember the change in Deshaun Watson’s physique between the end of his freshman year and spring ball of the next season.  It was obvious and it told me he had spent long hours working on it in the months in between.  The results on the field followed.

Clemson needs more of that: Physical transformation from a high school athlete into a college football player.

The next two things are more difficult to quantify, but they are real, at least to me.

The defense misses toughness. There’s no Ben Boulware chewing ass, or James Skalski bleeding for his team, while obviously giving his all.  There’s no Austin Bryant playing through an injury, risking his future for his team.

The defense this season was a collection of very good players, but less of a team, in my opinion.

The 2022 Clemson defense had two players that could be drafted in the top 15 of the NFL Draft and three players that may go in the top 30 and they were mediocre most of the season by Clemson standards.

There was no obvious leader as in Skalski, Boulware or even a Christian Wilkins and they obviously missed the leadership of Brent Venables.

Clemson football lacked leadership and playmakers in 2022

Leadership and toughness, while difficult to quantify, is important.

Finally, the offense had no playmakers.  A hundred years ago a Texas fan friend of mine looked at an early Dabo team and said, “Yeah, they’re OK, but they don’t have any playmakers.”

I was offended, but he was right.

That changed with Deshaun, Trevor Lawrence, Mike Williams, Wilkins, Boulware, Skalski, Travis Etienne, Hunter Renfrow, Tee Higgins, Jordan Leggett, Artavis Scott and so many more and that’s something the last two teams have lacked.

When I look at what’s returning, I see bits and pieces that could form into a good team if things fall the right way, but I also see there’s a long way to go to get back to where the Tigers were.

Clemson was a good, but not elite team, in 2022.

A good team wins the ACC and while that’s certainly an admirable goal, that’s no longer the expectation.