#8: clemson tigers

Context

In Tommy Bowden's 9 year tenure as Clemson's head coach, it's hard to separate any Fall he's had from another. Pencil in 4-5 losses, a stinker performance against a weaker team after reaching a peak, and some kind of downer postseason game named after fruit or fast food chicken.

Not that it's all about Bowden, but anything short of at least an ACC Atlantic winning season or maybe even Clemson's first 10 win go of it since 1990 might have him heading out the door.

So why should this year be any different?

The word 'talent' is ill-defined and thrown around too much in college football discussions, but Clemson looks to have everything in place for an ACC title run with the skilled players they have, heading for a *hopefully* irregular fall for the sake of Clemson fans everywhere, and more importantly, my credibility after placing them this high.

I feel the offense will only improve slightly, but they won't have to do anything unusually good other than avoid turning the ball over if the defense holds true to form. But more importantly, the intangible factor of their 52 returning lettermen playing like the veteran team they are against a very manageable schedule should propel them to the big season the program has been starving for.

Experts

The NCS poll has Clemson one spot below my ranking, at #9 with an average of (11.00). Phil Steele has them highest in his predictive poll at #5. College Football News has Clemson at #20.

My Opinion

Since the ACC's addition of Boston College, Virginia Tech, and Miami completed in 2005, offensive production in the conference has been ......poor...... if you want to put it nicely. It's the reason the league hasn't developed into the national power like many projected it would.

The trend continued last year with no team averaging over Clemson's mark of 28 points per game in conference play and Clemson's 33.1 PPG for the season ranked only 29th nationally, but first in the conference.

Unless Paul Johnson's new option/run attack at Georgia Tech takes off quicker than expected or some team comes completely out of the blue and racks up some record turnaround, with their whole skill player rotation back Clemson should be able to pull away from most of their foes. But there are some concerns.

James Davis and CJ Spiller are the main ball carriers, and looked to be one of the best run combos in the nation coming into last year. Unfortunately Clemson's run game greatly regressed.

2006: 495 carries - 2832 yards (5th nationally) - 5.7 yards per carry - 31 touchdowns
2007: 508 carries - 2095 yards (50th nationally) - 4.1 yards per carry - 18 touchdowns

Well, they had to replace 4 starters last year, so most of those should be back leading to a turnaround this year...right? Not the case, as the Tigers have to break in 3-4 new starters, losing two tackles and the backups aren't heavy on experience.

Sometimes to a fault, I am a huge subscriber to the it-can't-be-worse theory when it comes to offensive lines at schools like Clemson who are able to always get talented players. This is the third season in a row Davis and Spiller will be together in the backfield and I think Clemson will find some bodies and improve on last year's numbers.

The offensive line also worsened last year in terms of protecting the quarterback, as they allowed only 15 sacks in 2006 but 35 last year. Unlike the dip in the running stats, though, the passing game was much better (although surely not a direct result of giving up more sacks :).

Now-senior Cullen Harper had 27 touchdown passes to only 6 interceptions and almost reached the 3000 yard mark through the air. He was very consistent, only throwing more than 1 interception in the Virginia Tech game which is pretty impressive for a first year starter.

Cullen is probably the best quarterback in the ACC with Matt Ryan now gone, but there's definitely some room for improvement. I listed his numbers above, but in conference games he wasn't as spectacular as his numbers suggest at first glance as over half his touchdowns came in out of conference games and his completion percentage dipped from 71 to 62% with a 13/4 touchdown to interception ratio when playing ACC foes.

He also only threw 1 touchdown in his last three games, a stretch in which Clemson went 1-2 and teams tried to force Harper to beat them throwing the deep ball (especially Auburn). I'll give him a pass on the Auburn game, since those Tigers have had some of the best defenses around the past few years, but to avoid a game like that (where he only threw for 104 yards) or the Georgia Tech meltdown (offense scored 3 points) work needs to be done.

Statistics bear out Clemson's insistence to be pretty conservative throwing the ball, as leading 2 receivers Aaron Kelly and Tyler Grisham averaged a combined 11.6 yards per catch, which is pretty low for a college team. They rely more on speedster Jacoby Ford and Spiller out of the backfield for bigger plays through the air, but CJ only averaged 8 yards per catch on 34 receptions and Ford only saw the ball 17 times.

With the players Clemson has in the backfield, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to play off of that and hit some easy moderate-to-deep balls consistently. Maybe sophomore Xavier Dye can be a bigger threat this year as he had 87 yards on only 6 catches in the spring game. That and the emergence of another receiver are the only things really keeping Clemson's offense from being among the top 15 or so in the country...outside of CJ Spiller needing to see more touches. Anyone have tape of last year's Chick-Fil-A bowl?

Rob Spence returns for his fourth year as offensive coordinator. I can't say I'm a big fan of his scheme, although obviously he has upgraded the talent and production since his arrival.

Defensive coordinator Vic Koenning came the same year as Spence and has really done a nice job with the defense. This year's group may be his best so far with the majority of starters returning and plenty of multi-year contributors. Virginia Tech was the only team to score over 26 ponts on the Tigers last year and their 41 points came in a game where Clemson actually held them to barely over 200 total offensive yards.

With the weak quarterback play in the conference, having a great secondary really isn't all that necessary but Clemson's looks to have of the better units in the country. Strong safety Michael Hamlin has started since 2005 and could be an all-american this year. The almost equally experienced senior Chris Clemons plays next to him and they both had 90+ tackles in 2007 and combined for 6 interceptions. Chris Chancellor and Crezdon Butler handled most of the cornerback snaps and combined for 7 picks as sophomores.

Clemson only loses 3 significant contributors on defense from last year and they're from the front seven. Nick Watkins was the team's leading tackler, fellow linebacker Tremaine Billie started 11 games, and Phillip Merling piled up some nice numbers at defensive end with 10 tackles for loss and 7 sacks.

Losing Merling when other Clemson players only accounted for 20 sacks may be of concern, but Ricky Sapp returns on the end with 9 carrer sacks and if true freshman Da'Quan Bowers comes anywhere close to the hype he's garnered at the other end, the pass rush should be adequate.

Through the last 8 games of the season only Auburn rushed for over 100 yards on the defense. The senior tandem of Dorell Scott and Rashaad Jackson return to man the starting tackle spots so if they do their job and eat up their blocks, stuffing the run shouldn't much much of a problem unless the new linebackers don't fill their gaps.

The only question seems to be that linebacker corps with Watkins and Billie departing. Cortney Vincent's status always seems to be up in the air with extracurricular problems and there's a lot of youth. Clemson usually churns out a top-end guy, and with the line and secondary looking really good I'm not too worried about this group.

Spiller and Jacoby Ford should be very fun to watch in the kick return game and both kickers return (seniors).

Prediction

Clemson absolutely needs to open the season with a win against Alabama for their psyche. These early season ACC-SEC matchups are usually recipes for ugly games, but I feel the Tigers will get it done somehow. The other crucial game on the schedule is at Wake Forest on October 9th. They get a bye going in to that one. Get through those two and start 6-0, and things are looking pretty peachy going down the stretch. Back-to-back trips to Boston College and Florida State could be troubling, but I don't see them dropping both of those and they could easily sweep.

They shouldn't have much of a problem with any of the home games, and the only 3 threats there look like Georgia Tech, Maryland, and South Carolina. No Virginia Tech on the schedule is key.

Hmmmm...

13-1, ACC Championship, and a chance for the ACC to win their first BCS game in a long time.