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.
The wide receivers must get separation
Going back once again to the Lawrence days, the Tigers had a run of wide receivers that found their way into the NFL. Except for Justyn Ross, Clemson hasn’t had that kind of talent in that position group in the past two seasons, and Ross was battling foot injuries through the 2021 season.
The single biggest criticism of the wide receivers has been that they have a hard time getting separated from their defenders. This was a big problem the past two seasons when the Tigers were playing a quarterback that tended to have accuracy problems and couldn’t necessarily thread a needle to squeeze the ball into a tight space.
Antonio Williams did well as a true freshman, but he can’t do it by himself.
There are a few ways to improve separation for the receivers. One way is with the scheme. There is a fair amount of optimism that Riley will be able to ‘scheme open’ receivers.
Another way it can be done is with speed, which is why we hear Tyler Brown and Misun Kelley have impressed in fall camp, despite being true freshmen who didn’t even have the benefit of spring practice. They both enrolled in the summer.
The other way is better route running and blocking, and that is on the receivers themselves. If they have put in the work to run better routes, that will make things easier for Klubnik. If they have worked on being better blockers, it will help each other as well as running backs.
We saw a little bit of Cole Turner last year. We’ve heard hype about Adam Randall but he was impacted by injuries. Beaux Collins played well as a freshman but was slowed by injuries as well. Brannon Spector has yet to break through.
If those four men can up their game and give Klubnik a reliable target beyond Williams and Jake Briningstool, the efficiency of the passing game will skyrocket under Riley’s leadership.
The offensive line must give Klubnik protection
The offensive line dipped to its lowest point in 2021 in what became Robbie Caldwell’s final season as the position coach. Thomas Austin helped the group take a step forward in 2022, but they will need to take another step in 2023, and it must happen early.
In addition to playing Duke right away, the Tigers will also play their biggest game of the season against Florida State within a month. Clemson can’t just rely on figuring it out eventually in 2023. They will need to be ready early.
The line is positioned to be very good right away. They return four starters, including center Will Putnam and right guard Walker Parks. The new starter will presumably be at left tackle, where it looks like Tristan Leigh will finally step into the starting lineup.
There was speculation before the season that if Leigh didn’t step up during the fall Austin might experiment with moving left guard Marcus Tate to tackle and bring someone like Mitchell Mayes in at guard. To date, we haven’t heard about any experimentation of that sort, which is an encouraging sign that the staff isn’t taking drastic action to shore up the left tackle position.
We did see that the depth chart released Monday lists the left tackle as Leigh or Colin Sadler. It is hard to tell if that is because Leigh left doubt or is Sadler simply played that well in fall camp. Either way, we don’t have a last minute change in camp like we did two years ago when Matt Bockhorst moved to center right before the season started, which is a positive sign.
If Leigh does not play well against Duke, Austin will only have a short time to figure out what to do before the Seminoles come to town.
Clemson’s secondary must hold against Riley Leonard
If you review the spread and over/under totals, it becomes clear that oddsmakers do not think Clemson’s offense is going to shut down Duke. They think the Blue Devils should score about three touchdowns on the Tigers.
There are probably a few reasons. The game is in Durham. There might be more visiting fans than normal in Wallace Wade Stadium, but it’s still Duke’s home field.
The Blue Devils return a lot of experience around Riley Leonard, and he proved himself as a quarterback last season. On the other side, Clemson’s secondary earned a reputation for being shaky. While they did perform well several times in the back half of the season, a poor performance in the Orange Bowl just amplified the Tiger’s woes in the backfield.
Clemson returns four starters in the secondary and three experienced second-stringers beyond that. The defensive line might need time to completely figure out their best lineup, so there is less margin for error this season.
There is also a good chance that the experience in the backfield leads to the Tigers playing more of the 3-3-5 formation. The experienced secondary must become a strength if the defense is going to be successful against proven offenses like Duke and Florida State.
Specialists will need to play well
I know that sounds very basic, so let me expand a bit. Elko is a good defensive coach. The Blue Devils were a good example of bend (56th in the nation in yards allowed) but not break (25th in points allowed).
I think it is very fair to expect the Tigers to score some touchdowns on Labor Day. I think it is also fair to expect the Blue Devils to limit options the closer the Tigers get to the red zone. The Tigers will also make mistakes as they continue to learn a new offense.
While it will be great to think the Tigers will score a touchdown on every drive, it won’t happen. Against a smart coach like Elko, Clemson will need to win the field position battle.
When the Duke defense does bend but avoids breaking, the Tigers will need new starting kicker Robert Gunn to look as good in the regular season as he apparently has in scrimmages.
When the Tigers stall before reaching Gunn’s range, they will need their punter to pin the Devils back. Aidan Swanson returns to punt this season but has been competing with Jack Smith. Swanson probably gets the nod but nothing has been said to indicate that either player is hands down better than the other.
If the punting from the starter doesn’t impress, we might see both Swanson and Smith get opportunities.