“Tell everybody we suck. Coaches suck, Cade stinks. Y’all start writing that again.” – Dabo Swinney
A New Week Begins
Today officially starts a new week after Dabo Swinney’s press conference. As known, Swinney reflected on the LSU loss Saturday night while also looking ahead to Troy. The bottom line is everybody has to be better, coaches included. Clemson heads into Saturday looking to learn from its mistakes and face a Troy team eager to make a statement.
“You better want to tackle…. It’s going to be a physical football game,” said Dabo.
Respect for Troy’s Program
Dabo has a ton of respect for the program at Troy. He also mentioned how the last couple of times Clemson has faced Troy in 2016 and 2011, those games were a bit tough.
“Troy will probably have more personnel groups than anybody we play,” said Dabo Swinney. They aren’t the Troy of past where they fling it around. They are a physical bunch that likes to run the football.
He also mentioned the sets, shifts, and motions they use. Definitely a game where Clemson will have to be very disciplined on the defensive side of the ball and stick to their assignments. Can’t get caught up in the eye candy.
Troy’s Leaders
Troy running back Tae Meadows had a great game against Nicholls. He carried the ball 23 times for 186 yards and a touchdown. Dabo says he currently leads the country in rushing after week one.
Their quarterback Goose Crowder is a mobile one. On Saturday against Nicholls, he only passed for 144 yards but threw for three touchdowns. In the run game, Crowder had seven carries for 43 yards with a touchdown.
Given the competition that Troy faced, I would like to believe that Clemson’s defense would be better. Having said that, you can’t take anything for granted.
LSU only had 108 yards rushing on the night, and 24 of those yards came from Caden Durham’s run on the first play of the game.
Troy’s defense had a strong outing on Saturday. Linebacker Jordan Stringer led with nine total tackles, followed by Jaquez White with eight. White also added an interception. This defense has physicality and speed off the edge. They recorded four sacks and eight tackles for loss against Nicholls.
Nothing Clemson should not be able to handle. At the end of the day, the Tigers just have to show up and do what they know to do.
Evaluating Clemson’s Offense
“The biggest issue in that game is our best player didn’t play well,” said Swinney. He also went on to say “2 will respond.” Dabo went on to point out some mistakes from Cade in reads and misses where LSU gave him what he needed to make plays. “He just had a bad day,” said Dabo.
Dabo was asked if LSU brought anything they did not expect as for the pressure on Cade Klubnik. Swinney said, “They didn’t do anything we didn’t expect.” He went on to explain.
“He created a lot of the pressure, because he held the ball, and he didn’t throw it, like the 3rd and 12, when he took off scrambling. I mean, the read is Tyler Brown. He’s the read. It’s a 50 yard touchdown if he just throws the ball. But for some reason, he came off, and then he started scrambling,” said Swinney.
However, it was not all on Cade. The wide receivers had some missed opportunities as well.
“And certainly wasn’t just Cade. I mean, Wesco had two big misses. Big. We TJ had a big mess. He gotta make a contested play. That’s just football… Make those plays, and he will, they will,” said Swinney.
Dabo has “confirmation” on who Clemson is as a team. He said this with a true belief tone. Clemson just has to clean up some things and make better decisions on the field and from the coaches on the sidelines. This team is far too talented to burry and beat themselves.
This is still a long season ahead, and with one loss already down, I will say on record that Clemson has no real room for error. They will see some ACC teams that are going to be a test. Don’t let the national narrative of this conference fool you.
One major failure that was definitely on the coaches part, Garrett Riley in particular, was abandoning the run game.
Swinney stated, “We didn’t even try on the run game… we didn’t even give it a chance.” He went on to say that both Garrett Riley and he himself had to be better in that.
That is something you cannot give up on. Adam Randall only having five carries was a malpractice and did not make things any easier for Cade Klubnik. LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly also mentioned that after the game. That in itself did not help the quarterback at all.
Defensive Positives
The defense was great. “There were a lot of narratives in the offseason, and the only one that held up Saturday night was Tom Allen and that defensive line, and them linebackers,” said Dabo.
He followed saying, “Rest of them, everybody can start throwing mud now. Tell everybody we suck. Coaches suck, Cade stinks. Y’all start writing that again.”
Linebackers Sammy Brown and Wade Woodaz flew around the field all night with a purpose. Outside of the missed tackle from Woodaz on play number one, he was good as gold that night. The defensive line held to the test. LSU doubled Woods and Parker from time to time, and rightfully so. Those guys are the key players up front that everyone in the country has their eyes on.
When that happens, the linebackers should have plenty of opportunity to make plays as we saw on Saturday night.
Final Takeaway
The overall message on Clemson’s takeaway from the LSU game is that they just have to be better. There were several examples of missed opportunities that Dabo threw out there from Saturday, and it sounds like Clemson was a lot closer to a win than it seemed.
They just did not help themselves, and the letdown of it all against a top 10 LSU squad definitely makes everything seem catastrophic, depending on how you look at it. Time to put that to bed and just get better.
Troy this Saturday and an opportunity for Clemson to get those things right.
Kickoff is set for 3:30 PM EDT on ACC Network. Chris Cotter will be alongside Max Browne in the booth, with Kendra Douglas on the sideline.
