Clemson Football 2024 Preview

Clemson dbo Sweeney coming in this year we got Garrett Riley at OC the highest paid coordinator Wes Goodwin at DC last year N9 and4 first time they haven't won 10 games in 12 Seasons clumsy has become a Cornerstone program one of the best in the business they're over under set at 9 and a half a lot has been made about the demise of Davos Sweeney and Clemson due to the transfer portal issues and just the failure to adapt to the current state of affairs in college football and while it is definitely silly you know they could have really used some help last season in the transfer portal I do think long term dbo is going to look like a genius here um and his program is built for the long term here it's going to continue I think the way college football is headed he's going to come out right and he's going to be in the best position to capitalize on the new landscape I think we're going to be seeing here um just shortly when we start putting these guys on a payroll um from a university standpoint but let's dive into it a little bit more look quarterback you got to get the idea that Trevor Lawrence or uh Watson are walking through those doors anymore they're not you know klubnik is a guy that I have not been particularly high on I know Clemson fans were really excited about him because of the early prospect that he was but he just seems to not and this is kind of where you wish dbo had sort of taken advantage of the transfer portal and bring in another guy but dbo runs this like a family and he runs it from a developmental standpoint and he believes in kind of identifying guys that are going to buy into the program and believe the program is bigger than one individual player um and that's sort of why he stuck it out with Kate club dick he's got to get better the spring game did not look good for a guy who's been in a system that long um and you're relying on to be your quarterback um we'll see I don't have a ton of faith in him but what I do have a faith in is the upgrade in weapons which may help balance this out Phil mafa is a bell-cow back for them in the running back room you know you're going to be hard pressed to find a better running back in the ACC there's a handful out there but he is right up there towards the top depth will be an interesting concern here can they find a number two back to kind of take a little bit of the load off of him I think is the question the wide receiver room this is something we talked about last season the Clemson had failed to recruit and to develop the wide receiver room like they historically had because Clemson historically has had fantastic production out of their wide receiver room that is definitely the case this year I think I mean this wide receiver and they dealt with injuries last season but this wide receiver room they built back stronger my goodness they've got these two young kids coming in TJ Moore and Brian Wesco Brian Wesco they are talking as if he is going to be deand Andre Hopkins reincarnated um you got TJ Moore who in that Army high school All-American Game was arguably the best player on the field like he looked to be the best guy on the field during that game like you have to be overly excited about what this wide receiver room brings to the table um if Antonio or anine Antoine Antoine Williams can be healthy that's a nice little piece too I think the guy that maybe we're not talking enough about in Clemson is Jake Brin stol at tight end I think he's a great option in the past game he could be a little bit of a security blanket for Kade Club Nick but I think overall as a Clemson fan you have to be absolutely estatic about what davo has gone out and done from a recruiting stamp point for the wide receiver room and finally getting that back up to the standard that Clemson football has been almost built on at this point um offensive line Blake Miller is back Center you've got question marks but Matt Luke's a really good offensive line coach so I sort of their floor is higher than most that would be in their position this is another area where like the failures to take advantage of the transfer portal are are are capping your ceiling early um but Matt Luke does a good job of setting the floor high as an offensive line coach so as long as you can get decent production out of your offensive line the weapons you have I think there is an upgrade to Clemson's offense compared to last year how big of an up upgrade I don't know you're really going to have to hope that these these weapons can carry gate Club Nick I think um they're going to be a run heavy team but then when they do open up the pass you just have to hope he reads it right uh and gets the ball out on time because if you get it to the weapons they'll do the rest of the job for you like that's the kind of kind of guys they have here the quarterback doesn't have to be overly fantastic with the weapons they offer it's just can he read the defense right and get the ball out of time and and that could we'll see be big ass maybe um defensively uh bar Carter's back I mean just a huge huge retention piece you get uh RJ uh mickens back as well I mean those are two massive massive pieces for this Clemson defense Clemson I was concerned about the falloff um of the Clemson defense there they seem West Goodwin seems to be a good doing a good job of St being a stabilizing Force for this program um and making sure that the defense doesn't sort of have that massive falloff it's incredibly talented still they develop a lot of guys um but I do think it'll be a slight downgrade from last year um like I said bar Carter in the linebacker room returning is massive for them Sammy Brown they believe is the absolute future for this program you've got TJ Parker and Pete of woods who were massive hits for them in the secondary like those are two young guys or not secondary defense of line my goodness um they have two guys in the the secondary uh Shelton Lewis and Terrell who were big hits but TJ Parker and Peter Woods seem to be legit pieces for them DBS you have four returning freshman like I kind of got mixed up there a little bit Shelton Lewis and Terrell massive hits for them like that's going to be big um safety Cleo Barnes you know big freshman season gonna be paired with RJ again outside of that pairing I'm not overly excited about the depth here so you got to hope for a little injury luck we'll see I think you give a slight benefit of the doubt to Clemson as a whole to be able to develop talent but how quickly can they get acclimated and play as a unit will be massive um as far as the state of the union for Clemson I I've sort of gave it up front dabo's unwillingness to take advantage of the transfer portal is setting their ceiling lower it's an Iron Dome it it's set lower but because of how he runs this program because of the development they have because of the long-term Outlook they have their sealing or not their cealing their floor is much higher than other programs um longterm like I said I think dabo's going to be fine I think we're over we're over exaggerating the downfall of Clemson long term I think because I do think we're going to start to see pretty shortly here in the coming years college football moving to more of a salary based thing and dav's going to come out looking like a genius if that happens and his program is going to be in the best shape to capitalize off that and Clemson's going to keep rolling on so I think long term they're going to be fine I think just short term you're going to run into some frustration because there's a lot of Talent on the roster and you don't see the maximized potential because you fail to acquire just a handful of guys in the transfer portal you know like offensive Line's a great example of this where I don't think you need to be transfer portal heavy but an offensive line is expensive but just getting that one guy or the two guys spending your money there and just bringing them in and maybe another you know dep piece at quarterback to add a little competition that goes a long way like Clemson's inability to just identify that you don't have to be a Colorado you don't have to be a team that has massive turnover the portal but just identifying four to guys at portal class that are towards the the upper end spending your money there could go a long way to clog just tiny holes that elevate that ceiling and and dabbl refusal to do that just lowers their ceiling a little bit but the floor is super high for a Clemson team as always um I'm going to include Notre Dame in this uh even though [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] a [Music] he