Clemson Football: Offensive line has made progress, still room to improve

One of the challenges faced by Clemson Football over the past few seasons has been the play of the offensive line. During most of Clemson’s run of College Football Playoff berths, the offensive line wasn’t seen as a liability, but they also weren’t perceived as being a strength of the team.

Things took a turn for the worse in 2021, mostly because of turnover in the group and the need to play younger guys who weren’t as polished and didn’t work as well together as a unit.

Robbie Caldwell transitioned to an off-the-field role, and Thomas Austin took over as the position coach. Austin accomplished improvement in 2022 but still had a relatively young starting lineup.

The hope was that the 2023 unit would hit its stride early in the season and contribute in a big way to the running game and give new starting quarterback Cade Klubnik plenty of time to operate in the pocket.

This season, I can see more improvement. I think the offensive line’s performance in the first three games of this season has been better than what we saw in the first three games of 2022, which was an improvement over what we saw in the first three games of 2023.

I have a fair amount of confidence in Austin as the coach and that he will continue the development and improvement of the offensive line this year and for seasons to come. In this day and age, we often see coaches who work magic overnight, but there are still some who need time to operate. Austin has brought consistent improvement to his group, albeit not instant satisfaction.

Thomas Austin has provided consistent improvement for the Clemson Football offensive line, and that should continue

It is fair to say there is still work to be done. This group so fair fits under the description I gave earlier for Caldwell’s lines between 2015 and 2020. This group isn’t a liability. The biggest improvement I see is that there aren’t nearly as many blown assignments and gaffs by any individuals. They do happen, but they are rarely the drive-killing mistakes we have seen in the last couple of seasons.

That said, this group still isn’t the strength some predicted going into this season. They aren’t making as many mistakes, but they also haven’t consistently gotten a push on rushing downs, or the clean pocket on passing downs. They bear some of the responsibility for putting Klubnik in challenging situations where he has made mistakes and often fail to get a push or open up holes for the running backs.

This might make Austin very happy. Often what a coach wants the most is for there to be things to praise while also having room for improvement. Austin has both right now.