Clemson Football will play a night game against a team from Florida that was once coached by Willie Taggart. It just isn’t the team most people expected.
Here are the five keys to victory over the Florida Atlantic Owls when the Tigers kickoff at 8:15 PM on Saturday at Death Valley.
Stop the bleeding on offense
Mistakes on offense have been costly. Before Labor Day, Clemson had never lost a game in the Dabo Swinney era when they had 200 yards passing and 200 yards rushing.
It was the missed field goals, lost fumbles, and early slides on 4th down that cost them against Duke, and similar errors led the Tigers to trail the Charleston Southern Buccaneers by a touchdown in the second quarter on Saturday.
No such mistakes occurred in the second half against CSU, and Clemson rolled to a 66-17 victory.
I’m not going to say if this team is mistake-free that they can beat anyone on their schedule, but I do believe they can defeat Florida Atlantic if they can avoid the errors that have plagued them thus far this season.
Florida Atlantic hired Tom Herman (formerly at Texas and Houston) as their head coach to replace Taggart. They brought in Casey Thompson (formerly at Nebraska and Texas) as the quarterback. Some were considering them to be a contender in the American Athletic Conference in their first season. Thus far, they haven’t jumped off the page at anyone.
Control the line of scrimmage
Against FCS Monmouth, Florida Atlantic had over 200 yards of rushing. Things looked good.
Against Ohio (the MAC team, not the Buckeyes), FAU was barely able to scrape together any yards on the ground. Officially, they tallied 5 yards on 15 carries. Even if you take away the negative yardage from Thompson’s three sacks, it was 27 yards of rushing.
If Clemson’s defensive line can play as well this Saturday as they did this past Saturday against CSU, then they should have no troubles from the Owls’ rushing attack.
On the other side of the ball, the Clemson offensive line has played fairly well, but they have had a role to play in the mistakes. Several of the blunders either involved an individual mistake by an offensive lineman or a general lack of protection for Klubnik.
Knowing that Klubnik makes poor choices when under pressure, the offensive line will need to work hard to keep their quarterback out of positions when he will not have time to think through his progressions.
The FAU defensive line isn’t a pushover, but the Clemson offensive line should be able to have success in this game.
Off-topic: FAU has a great nominee for the All-Name Team – linebacker Jackson Ambush, who had eight tackles and one of the Owls’ tackles for loss against Ohio.
Cade Klubnik needs to find multiple receivers in the passing game
Klubnik had at least five completions each to Antonio Williams, Will Shipley, and Beaux Collins against Duke, and nine total players.
Against CSU, there was a similar trio that had at least five receptions (this time it was Troy Stellato in place of Shipley), but there were sixteen different players who had a reception.
A Garrett Riley-led offense will benefit from spreading the ball around to multiple receivers during the game. It helps keep the defense guessing where the ball will go next. It also keeps them from cheating too much help towards players like Williams and Collins, who are the most reliable receivers right now.
It also will help Klubnik. The more players he has confidence in, the more willing he will be to make quick decisions when he sees someone coming open.
The one name fans want to be more involved very badly is tight end Jake Briningstool, who only has four receptions for 25 yards through two games.
One of the things we discussed in the preseason was that the Tiger offense can’t do everything. If they brought on a fourth wide receiver, either the running back or tight end would have to come off the field. If they used a two-running back set, then either the tight end or a wide receiver would have to come off the field.
Thus far, it feels like the tight end is the position often being sacrificed. We have seen several plays where the five offensive linemen are without a tight end by their side.
That doesn’t mean there haven’t been opportunities to find Briningstool. Look at this screenshot from Klubnik’s disastrous Pick-Six against the Bucs.
Wrote yesterday that the bones/structure of Garrett Riley's offense has produced open receivers on a regular basis thus far. Here's what it looked like a couple seconds before Cade Klubnik's pressured third-down throwaway that CSU took to the house:https://t.co/B3bGCPhy3U pic.twitter.com/QrIsfJjR9f
— Larry Williams (@LarryWilliamsTI) September 12, 2023
That’s Briningstool in the top center of the screen. It would be in Klubnik’s best interests to find him more often.
Get in and get out: no injuries
I don’t like to repeat points from week to week, but in this respect, the Florida Atlantic game isn’t any different from the Charleston Southern game.
The ideal situation for the Tigers is for the offense to put points on the scoreboard, and for the defense to push FAU into as many turnovers or punting situations as possible.
The Tigers have perhaps their biggest challenge of the season the next weekend when Florida State visits Death Valley. The last thing Clemson Football needs is for any important players to be injured against Florida Atlantic.
The Owls are a Group of Five team, so they represent a stiffer challenge than an FCS team like the Buccaneers. We also need to note that the Owls’ lackluster performance at home against the Bobcats might have been due to looking ahead to their game against the Tigers.
Clemson will need to be focused on their game. If they are, it is reasonable to expect that the Tigers might be able to get the starters out of the game earlier than they did this past weekend against CSU. Keep your fingers crossed. Reps are important, but so is health.
Clemson Football can’t look ahead to Florida State
A big part of maturity is handling your responsibilities. Early returns have indicated that Clemson has room to improve in the maturity department, so we probably shouldn’t assume there won’t be challenges in this regard.
We noted on the previous slide that Florida Atlantic might have been looking ahead to their matchup with Clemson, and that could explain why they struggled against Ohio, especially on offense.
Many thought the Owls would finish in the top half of the American this season. There was a lot of respect for Herman as an offensive-minded coach, and for Thompson and other transfers.
The results last weekend would indicate those expectations were a bit much, but it’s still early. FAU might have more in store than we realize.
The last thing Clemson should do is look ahead to their big game against the Seminoles and assume they will handle the Owls easily, but this team has done multiple things this season that we would describe as the last thing they should do.
We will find out this weekend how quickly they can mature. Staying focused on the Owls instead of the Seminoles is a realistic challenge for them right now, and the last thing they need as they approach next weekend is another reason to doubt themselves.