This season, the Clemson offense has been tough to ge a handle on. For stretches, the Tigers have looked like a high-flying circus with the passing attack racking up huge yardage with ease. However, in recent weeks, the Tigers have had to turn more to the ground game to move the ball and that's placed a huge workload on senior RB Phil Mafah. Now, it is fair to wonder if he is carrying the ball too much.
This year, Mafah has 161 carries for 981 yards and 8 touchdowns in nine games. To put that in perspective, understand that he had 179 carries for 965 yards and 13 touchdowns in 13 games last year.
"Phil's just steady, man," Swinney said earlier this week. "He's just such a smart player. He understands patience and how important that is in the run game and setting your blocks up. And he understands all the run schemes. He understands the defense. You know, he sees it, and he feels it. So just a really really talented player. I'm proud of him, the type of season he's had."
However, when asked about Mafah's workload in the past two games (56 combined carries), Swinney seemed unconcerned. In fact, he indicated that Mafah's workload isn't likely to decrease.
"I like mo' Mafah, mo' better," Swinney said. "I ain't worried about anything else. You know, a little Mafah is good, mo' is better. This is the championship phase, man. We have all the confidence in the world in our other guys but why would you not want to give the ball to Mafah more? You know, we only got him for a few more weeks. He's going to be gone. And he's a horse, man.
"It's not like we're just blowing everybody out. When games are on the line, you're going to put your best; if I had another guy out there, y'all would say 'Why is Mafah on the sideline? Why would you have your best player on the sideline and you've got this guy in there?' You know, we're trying to win the game and we've got our best players in the game."
The question that must be asked, though, is whether Clemson is going to hit the point of diminishing returns by putting such a heavy load on Mafah's shoulders.
In the first four games of the season, he averaged 10.7 carries per game. During that time, his yards-per-carry average was 8.0.
Since then, he's averaged 23.6 carries per game. Over that span, his yards-per-carry has dipped to 5.4.
Now, almost any football fan knows that the more carries a back gets, the more his yards-per-carry average is going to dip. That's just the nature of football.
However, Mafah hasn't looked as explosive in recent weeks as he did earlier in the season. Is that a sign that he's starting to wear down under the stress of an increased workload or does it mean that teams are starting to focus more on slowing the Clemson run game instead of trying to limit what the once-dangerous Tiger passing game can do?
Either way, the Tigers are getting nothing from their backup running backs. QB Cade Klubnik is second on the team in carries behind Mafah with 68. Then comes freshman Jay Haynes with 31 carries for 151 yards and a touchdown on the season.
What's more, against Virginia Tech, no other Clemson running back got a single carry in the game. And against Louisville, in a game that was decided early in the fourth quarter, Mafah took all of the running back carries but one.
Thus, it appears that Clemson is going to ride the Mafah train until it runs out of steam. However, as the season concludes, it will be worth watching to see if the Tigers' workhorse can handle a load that is heavier than he's ever experienced at the college level. That's because he is now the driving force of the Tigers' offense and there appear to be no plans to give him a break.