After a 31-14 thumping in the Orange Bowl to Tennessee, the question is not whether Dabo Swinney should re-evaluate his program. That’s an absolute no-brainer, but will he re-evaluate it?
Clemson will finish the year at 11-3 and ACC Champion. It will be a top-15 season. That’s a great season for most college football programs. That’s not good enough at Clemson who has now gone 3 years without a playoff appearance.
Dabo Swinney’s program can no longer be considered among the elite of college football along with the Georgias, Ohio States and Alabamas of the world. It’s hard to stay there. Even Alabama may have slipped behind Georgia, but Clemson definitely has.
The Tigers are a very good program, but they aren’t great anymore.
Clemson has dropped back to their 2011-2014 era of football. At that time they won a lot of games, but they struggled with the best teams of that time they played like South Carolina and Florida State. They weren’t a physical ball club, and the offense when it could out-talent teams looked great. When it couldn’t they resorted to gadget plays and abandoned the running game.
That sounds a lot like what we saw Friday night from Clemson and OC Brandon Streeter.
The Tigers had an offensive game plan that wreaked of desperation. That ran gimmick plays that miserably failed, didn’t run the ball when they should have, couldn’t figure out when to kick FGs, and put the game on the arm of talented, but inexperienced QB Cade Klubnik.
I can’t give OC Brandon Streeter or DC Wes Goodwin more than C- efforts on the season. Both looked overwhelmed and overmatched at this level. Goodwin showed signs of improvement towards the end of the season, but Streeter looked as lost as ever.
Streeter couldn’t coax consistent football out of previous QB DJ Uiagalelei, and the offense was a mess most of the year.
Kubik is an upgrade at QB, but that’s only part of the problem.
The offense lacks speed and has no identity.
What will Dabo Swinney do?
Will he finally embrace the transfer portal? Is it too soon to look at changes in the coordinator position? Will he bring some experienced coaches as analysts?
Swinney has forgotten more football than I’ll ever know, but it’s pretty apparent something needs to change with how Dabo Swinney is managing the program if Clemson is to again reach elite status.
If he stays status quo, then he has admitted that “pretty good” not “best” is the new standard at Clemson.
Make sure you follow the All Sports Discussion Twitter account at @AllSportsDACC and please like our Facebook Page
Leave a Reply