Same Soup, Different Spoon…
I have to begin owning my own lack of foresight for last week’s opener vs. LSU. It wasn’t that I thought LSU couldn’t win the game, but HOW they managed to win the game was not anything like I expected. It wasn’t a shootout, with Clemson’s rebuilding defense not yet able to execute at the needed level to keep an electric LSU offense down. It wasn’t an injury to Klubnik or a rash of turnovers or special teams disasters that flipped the script. It was the supposedly fully weaponized Klubnik and his
array of skill weapons being largely throttled by what had been LSU’s biggest weakness for several seasons.
Clemson lost its third opener in a row, and actually scored the MOST points in those losses at a measly 10. For whatever reason, Clemson’s plan of being “methodical about the basics” as Offensive Coordinator Garrett Riley stated ended up being another case of “just didn’t do the basic things.” I think it is safe to say the shine of the Riley hire has all but totally worn off with Clemson’s fan base at this point. Some of Dabo’s directly pointed statements in his press conferences after the game indicate he’s done playing nice on this side of the ball as well. Now we have to see how Riley, Klubnik, and the rest of the offense responds in what, in theory, is about the only game they can mess around and win in September. GT and Syracuse have both shown they have enough pieces to take advantage of this Clemson squad if it can’t get its execution issues corrected on offense.
Clemson Offense vs. Troy Defense: I’m starting here because this is really where the rubber has to meet the road. There is really no excuse for how badly the Clemson offense played on Saturday night. Yes, LSU has some great defensive talent, in particular Harold Perkins, Whit Weeks, and Mansoor Delane, but they relied heavily on blitzing to disrupt the Clemson offense and Cade (and you assume Riley as well) repeatedly failed to take advantage of what that opened up. Film review has shown multiple cases of wide open check-downs, usually the slot or the running back, that should have burned those blitzes maybe to the point of forcing LSU to alter its approach. A senior QB should not be missing those reads like we saw Cade miss them. We got 2023 Cade all over again, with unnecessary scrambling, desperation heaves to covered WR, and a general vibe of being in over his head. When Cade DID step up and deliver what we expect, like that dime to Bryant Wesco on a slot fade, it got dropped.
Cade rebounded very well from a poor game against UGA last year, so the precedent is there that good Cade will return and hopefully stay in the building for the remainder of 2025. It can happen even to the best, and we saw uncharacteristic things from even DeShaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence at times in their illustrious careers. The problem Clemson has is the team isn’t quite good enough to complete overcome that. IMHO, Trevor’s last game as a Tiger was one of his worst performances, coincidentally also against LSU. LSU was mega-elite on offense as we know, but Clemson’s offense was fully capable of playing tit for tat if Lawrence had been more like himself that night. He wasn’t and pressed and got flustered when LSU’s offense got going, and the rest was history. Cade had a very similar type of game where he just didn’t get control over what was going on. Dabo claims the team and staff now “has the answers to the test.” The jury is out to how well they can show that going forward.
Troy certainly doesn’t have the same personnel that LSU has, but they will likely employ a similar approach of trying to send various and disguised pressures at Clemson. I fully expect Clemson to be bullheaded about trying to run the football in this game because they have to develop some degree of trust and confidence in that aspect before heading to Atlanta. The issue they have is being able to hope to match up on the outside with Clemson’s WR. LSU had good enough corners, in particular Delane, to take their chances one on one on the outside. Clemson should have murdered them with the slot, and perhaps would have had Antonio Williams not gotten hurt, but as Dabo pointed out, Tyler Brown “should have had two touchdowns” and probably could have had well over 100 yards had he been hit on hot reads vs. the blitzes like he should have been. Adam Randall is not Phil Mafah, and while that might affect the desire to hand him the ball 20+ times in a game, it should also be way more inviting to check a ball down to him as an outlet, which Klubnik did just once all night in an almost desperation decision.
My best guess as to last week’s letdown is that what Cade and Riley anticipated being LSU’s weakness were indeed not weaknesses. They had a healthy Perkins to attack protections (which found Clemson trying to block him with a running back on more than one occasion) and to spy Klubnik. They didn’t have Perkins healthy last year when Texas A&M put in a running QB and tore them apart. Delane had a stellar night matching up with Wesco and Moore on the outside, as neither were able to win on sideline routes or slants beyond Wesco’s juggling back shoulder fade catch. Neither Riley nor Cade effectively adjusted to what LSU was having to give up in order to disrupt the run game and outside WR. When they did have the right call on, like the QB draw for Cade, a guard not doing his job properly allowed a great player to react and save the day.
Clemson has to show people it can and will run the football. There is no doubt they will be stubborn on this front on Saturday. So much of Clemson’s offense is built on play actions coming off the base inside zone runs and GT counters, but those actions became a waste of time against LSU who had no intention of honoring the run threat. Adam Randall deserved better, and Dabo said as much, as he was tough and decisive on his very few running opportunities. At least Clemson showed it can line up in I formation and run a power lead when Keith Adams, Jr. threw a massive lead block and Randall powered through the contact to score.
I doubt Antonio Williams will play in this game even if he’s close to ready. The staff will likely look to get him right for GT and beyond, and I don’t blame them. We can only wonder at what might have been had Williams not gone out. It was very evident he was a huge part of the initial game plan, and Cade’s issues might have also been tied to losing that factor. However, a senior QB of his stature has to be able to adjust way better than that.
I was very critical of the OL play last week in real time. They actually were not as bad overall as it seemed, but Tristan Leigh WAS that bad. Leigh is such a quality guy that you hope he can rebound and play a lot better, but you have to wonder if the move to Brayden Jacobs will happen at some point otherwise. Clemson’s attempts to run left were often a complete disaster, which obviously can’t continue going forward. Most of Perkins’s disruption came coming off that left side.
Things are rarely as good or bad as they seem in the moment when it comes to football. You have to tip your cap to LSU and their staff because their game-plan and execution on both sides of the ball were just better. I don’t really buy into a “physical superiority” narrative as much, other than their top guys like Perkins and Nuessmeier played closer to their capability than guys like Klubnik and T.J. Parker.
Clemson simply has to show growth this week. That certainly happened last year when the team came out and lit up the scoreboard on Appalachian State. Now, that App team turned out to be one of their worst teams in a decade, but it helped the Tigers get rolling until that bye week. Clemson needs positive mojo on this side of the ball and fans will be anxious until that happens.
My Offensive X-Factor last week was Tyler Brown, and that certainly showed up when Williams went out and should have been solid gold had Klubnik hit Brown a few more times when he was running wide open. This week I’m going with Adam Randall because of the need to get the running game going.
Clemson Defense vs. Troy Offense: Clemson’s defense in many ways was a sight for sore eyes vs. LSU. I’m particularly impressed because sometimes if a DL just overwhelms the opponent, it can cover for issues in other areas that later get exposed. I’m old enough to have gone through the 2000 season, when Clemson’s defense was throttling people with heavy blitzing. Then they ran into teams who could punish the blitz like NCSU, GT, and especially FSU, and it became obvious that Clemson had serious problems matching up at corner and safety. LSU had a tremendous game plan to offset Clemson’s powerful front seven and executed it at a pretty high level, particularly for a week 1 game. Despite that, Clemson’s defense held up very well overall and showed definite improvement in physicality and pursuit from last season. The two turnovers were a direct result of physical hits by pursuit players. It is very unfortunate that the only DPI flags thrown that night were against Clemson, not that Clemson didn’t earn them, but that LSU managed to get away with some physical secondary play without a flag when more than once it looked like a DPI could be warranted.
Nuessmeier was extremely impressive, particularly in avoiding putting the ball in jeopardy. He was decisive and on time almost every time, which is extremely hard to defend no matter how good your front is. YouTube the 1985 Bears vs. Dolphins game, and you will see how that all-time great Bears defense was undone by Dan Marino’s quick and decisive throws. I’m not saying Nuessmeier is Marino or Clemson has the 85 Bears defense, but in relative terms, I can see a bit of the resemblance of scenario. There was a lot to like with how Clemson performed considering the quality of LSU’s offense AND how cleanly they played under the circumstances. I would have taken 17 points surrendered all day if offered before that game. This team should win 9 out of 10 times holding anyone under 20 points.
The trick is now how much consistency Clemson can show defensively. We got some moments of great defense last year, even in the first half of that 2024 UGA game. However, we clearly saw the defense could not maintain that level for whatever reason over a four quarter game. Clemson saw LSU go after the safeties like most of us anticipated they would, and for the most part, they held up. That was even more impressive after the best safety on the team, Khalil Barnes, left the game with a hamstring injury. My X-factor choice was Ricardo Jones, and he showed up early with that fumble return (though it was very disappointing he didn’t take that all the way.) The biggest positive was Ronan Hanafin’s impact. Hanafin brings a size/speed/range/physicality combination to that spot that frankly has been rare since Jayron Kearse was in town. Hanafin is even more vital as long as Barnes is having to recover.
Linebacker play was definitely better overall from what we were left seeing last season. The game did start with Wade Woodaz missing a tackle, but overall they looked better and were put in some very challenging scenarios by the LSU play designs. These guys are going to be essential when teams like GT and FSU come around with what they like to do on offense. Troy is built on a heavy run-based offense now as well, so it is a good test for this unit to continue to prove it can handle the run game. Some of the edge defense still needs to get better, and LSU did very little to attack the A and B gaps, but teams will be hard pressed to come up with more unique ways to come at Clemson’s edge and backside gap defense than LSU. Tom Allen now has that to teach from and adjust to, which we all have to assume he will do a good job of like Brent Venables famously did.
My X-Factor for this game defensively is DeMonte Capehart. Capehart should be ideally suited to disrupt a power running game like Troy tries to have. Capehart was so huge in the 2023 upset against ND for that very reason.
Special Teams: This phase was good enough to win on Saturday night, with Nolan Houser’s missed FG being the worst part. That kick was well protected and well struck, so as unfortunate it was under the circumstances of a game like that, the execution part was pretty good. I had to say I was surprised to see Adam Randall back as primary kick returner considering his role as RB1, but it was a moot point on Saturday as all the kicks went for touchbacks. Bryant Wesco got the nod as punt returner, though you figure Antonio Williams would have been there if not for his injury. Wesco had a solid return to set up the final drive of the night. Kickoffs were good and punt coverage was solid, with LSU’s good returns there negated by holding penalties. Jack Smith appears to have won the punting job with a nice first major outing.
I always say big upsets almost always feature some big special teams play going against the favorite. Clemson certainly doesn’t need to allow some fiasco in this phase get Troy going.
Overall: I was as upset and disappointed as anyone after yet another dud opener and big game loss. The fact that Clemson couldn’t/didn’t run the ball at all and Cade Klubnik played C- at best football but the team still had a chance to tie the game at the end is a little encouraging. Clemson was out of the game against Duke at the end in 2023, and certainly out of the game against UGA by the fourth quarter last year. This game is as much about the offense getting its act together as anything else. Troy is a heavy underdog for a reason, and anything closer than a three score win will sound off tons of alarms.
The good news is Clemson has everything to play for on the table. Texas and Alabama and other teams who have lost already do as well, but how teams respond is the key. Clemson has plenty on the schedule to show redemption, and well beyond last year IMHO. FSU’s win was a boon to that upcoming game as long as the Seminoles don’t flounder before then. Miami certainly appears to be a team to take seriously. I do think this game will start a little slower than Clemson fans would like, particularly with the emphasis on running the football I anticipate, but the Tigers will pull away to win comfortably enough.
Clemson 40-Troy 14
