When Dabo Swinney was named Clemson's full time head coach in December of 2008, he did the most Mack Brown thing possible that a Mack Brown Jr. type could do. He started calling around the HC coaching fraternity, asking to come visit and sit down with various HCs across the land.
Many turned sweet, young Dabo down outright, as they were too busy with their own offseasons or bowl prep to care enough to help the hillbilly upstart and his staff. Still, one man did answer the call, and invited Dabo and his staff down to visit, right smack dab in the middle of Fiesta Bowl game prep - Mack Brown. They all spent 3 days in Austin, gladhanding and chumming it up.
Swinney's spent some time this week with the local Clemson press talking about that event and how happy he is to be heading back to Austin. After all, he spoke before the SMU game of preparing to make a run to be the first 3-loss national title winning coach. He thinks he has Clemson peaking at the right time (nevermind South Carolina whipping them in the trenches less than a month ago) and they're ready.
Running into Swinney's open armed optimism is a thin-skinned and panicked Longhorn netdom, who have spent the last week+ manufacturing ways in which they need to be worried about this upcoming, first-of-its-kind home playoff game against the underdog Tigers.
Having watched a small and slow Clemson team play backyard bully in a truly abysmal ACC all year, I can do nothing but smirk and mock each of these plaintive whines on the boards, as I know Texas is about to stomp a mudhole in Clemson's ass.
"But closetojumping, Dabo's a wizard and he's won the playoffs twice before! Sarkisian just eats his own boogers on the sidelines in postseason games!"
While it's true that Swinney has won two national titles, those days are long in the rearview mirror. Clemson only made its way to these playoffs through the backdoor, by beating an AAC team with too much hype.
This Clemson team has some future NFL players within its ranks. Mafah, if he hasn't taken too many bullets, seems like he'll be drafted. It's early, but TJ Moore and Bryant Wesco look like future stars. Antonio Williams, an older Clemson WR, is the current star and will get next level looks. Briningstool at TE is good but not great, yet he's going to the Senior Bowl and will be drafted. Defensively, Barrett Carter, Sammy Moore, TJ Carter, and Peter Woods will all likely play on Sundays. Peter Woods gets a lot of hype for a dude with like 21 tackles and 3 sacks in 7 or 8 games this year. Oh well.
From there? Slim pickings. That's the difference between now and years past. Some of the players I named are true freshmen. One is a true sophomore. They're not loaded with upperclassmen ready to go high in the draft. They have upperclassmen good enough to go somewhere in the draft, and that's it. They have an average OL as usual, with a couple of OTs who could go in the mid-late rounds, but they're never been a power in that key personnel area and this year is no different.
Meanwhile, Texas is loaded with draftable players and future NFL high round picks who cannot be drafted yet.
While Sarkisian's bowl and playoff record, thus far, do not inspire confidence, this roster talent should. If anyone honestly believes that the slack-jawed yokel roaming Clemson's sidelines with his 1000 yard stare and openly breathing through his mouth is some sort of X's and O's threat, they've not watched much Clemson.
"Now come on, CTJ, have you seen Texas' redzone offense and special teams play?"
Setting aside the futility of the raging Arch vs Ewers debate, featuring masturbatory fantasies about Sarkisian casually dropping in a complete red zone playset for Manning in the postseason, I think there are reasons for promise and optimism for Texas in the RZ this game.
While Texas has been mediocre scoring in the RZ due to, mostly, Bert Auburn gargling more balls than Mia Khalifa, Clemson's RZ defense has also mostly been dogshit this season, allowing points on more than 83% of their drives. This isn't Clemson from 2018 - their front seven is good but not great. They can be run on and they're not elite on pass defense either. Texas needs the offensive line to show up wearing men's jock straps underneath their uniforms and not in the pink panties they wore against the UGA front. Do that, have even Decent Quinn Ewers show up with them, and Texas gets to 20+ on the offensive side.
What about the rest of it, STs included? Clemson actually has substantially worse STs than Texas in most facets. They've had a bunch of FGs missed and blocked. They do basically nothing in the return game and just lost their main return guy for the season against SMU. Their coverage teams are average to boot.
All we need here on special teams is for Silas Bolden to not be a complete fucking lunatic and for someone to bring some positive karma in Auburn's direction by shaving his head and keeping him away from Scott Norwood and Ray Finkel.
"I don't know, closetojumping. I don't like their running game or turnover margin advantage."
The Clemson running game has been mentioned on this board and OTF as a source of concern. There's always going to be an affinity for Klubnik on the boards because of the Westlake alumni honk network. "Cade's over there being whiteboy awesome again! He's a dual threat, by gawd!" Right.
Look, the Clemson running game is in trouble. It's not just that Texas is a truly elite defense, but their personnel is also a problem. Klubnik's nothing special and easily spied. Mafah is seriously banged up and can't handle 20+ carries without serious wear and tear - their own writers are talking about this. The back-up just tore his ACL. The only defense within range of what they're about to face was Georgia's or SCar's and both shut them down on the ground.
As to TO concerns, part of why Clemson doesn't turn the ball over is due to the laughable schedule and competition they've played. In Clemson's 3 losses, Klubnik threw 1 TD and 2 picks. The turnover margin in those 3 games? 0. Clemson's feasting on TOs in their 9 wins against mostly overmatched competition.
The Clemson offensive game plan is usually to protect Klubnik from himself and work the short passing game while attempting to pound both he and Mafah until the weaker opponent breaks down. Against better teams, the Clemson running game has been held in check and they've been forced to try to let Klubnik and the young WR corps, along with Briningstool, win the game. They're 2-3 in those contests, with wins against an overmatched SMU on the last play of the game and Pitt in the final minute of the game when Pitt failed to spy Klubnik adequately and let him go streaking.
"Sure, CTJ, but we've never played these guys and their brand terrifies me in my feelings."
Clemson has beaten 10 teams this season with a combined record of 54-66. That includes an 11-2 SMU team that played virtually no one and shit itself twice against decent competition. I already discussed the two teams they beat with a winning record - a wildly overrated 11-2 SMU and a team in a disastrous state of collapse at the time of play (and continuing now) in 7-5 Pitt. The rest of their competition has either been dogshit that they obliterated, like a 5-7 FCS Citadel, or teams that paired up with them well and kicked their ass, like Georgia and Louisville.
If you watched Clemson at all this year, you know that they looked slow and small against SCar and Georgia. They looked great against Wake Forest and North Carolina State. How do you expect them to match up against Texas, on the road?
I'm thinking mudhole, to the tune of Texas 27 - Clemson 10. I'm not real sure how Clemson climbs above 13, even if Bad Quinn Ewers and Evil Bert Auburn show up and try to give the damned thing away.
Thoughts?
Hook'em