Clemson Football: Five keys to victory against the Duke Blue Devils

I began collecting my thoughts on the keys for Clemson Football to get a victory against the Duke Blue Devils this coming Monday, and after reviewing them, I realized they also looked like a general list of keys for Clemson to be successful all season.

Part of this is due to Duke being a veteran and rounded team. Riley Leonard is good, but he isn’t the only good player on offense. The defense returns several players who now have a full season with Mike Elko.

Clemson won’t be able to simply shut down one aspect of the Blue Devil offense or exploit one area of the Blue Devil defense to be successful, which makes this a good test for the Tigers right out of the gate.

Clemson will need to show improvement in the areas that were of the biggest concern in 2022 to get a victory on Labor Day Monday. Here are the five biggest keys for the Tigers against the Blue Devils.

The Clemson Football offense will need to be efficient, and that starts with Cade Klubnik

Think back to the Trevor Lawrence days. T-Law was never one to just throw for a gazillion yards a game. He was, however, one of the most efficient leaders the offense has ever had. As a quarterback, the Clemson offense got “bang for the buck”.

That efficiency took a major dive in the past two seasons, which is why the Tigers won’t simply have a new starting quarterback in Cade Klubnik but will also have a new playcaller and coordinator in Garrett Riley.

Riley has proof of concept with his offense under his leadership. He made both SMU and TCU competitive immediately. There is very little doubt that he knows what he is doing.

Except for the running backs and starting tight end, there isn’t the same proof of concept for most of the offensive players on the field, and the first person who will need to be efficient is Klubnik.

As a freshman, Klubnik had ups and downs. He was talented and brought a definite spark to the offense, but he also showed his inexperience with questionable decisions at times.

Decision-making is something that can be improved with experience and coaching. If Klubnik takes a step forward, it will be far less likely that good drives could end with a mistake that keeps the offense out of the end zone, the way things happened in the Orange Bowl.

Klubnik isn’t the only part of the offense that needs to improve in that regard, however.