Clemson’s season is over off the rip
Hats off to Duke for playing excellent defense, but Clemson should not be losing 28-7 to Duke. This was the first time since 2004 that Duke has beat Clemson. In fact, it is the biggest point margin in a Duke win over Clemson since 1936, when Duke won 25-0.
This is the first time Duke has beaten a top-10 ranked team since 1989, when they beat #7 Clemson. 0-29 between 1989-2022.
So Clemson started last season 10-1, but they have now lost 3 of their last 4 games. They lost to South Carolina at the end of the regular season, then won the ACC Title game 39-10 over North Carolina, and then lost 31-14 to Tennessee in the Orange Bowl. Now they start this season off with a loss.
And Clemson honestly was lucky to even score that one touchdown. It happened off a muffed punt by Duke that set Clemson up inside the 20.
Clemson simply couldn’t do a thing on offense. 1 for 4 in the red zone. You are probably not beating many teams when you’re 1 of 4 in the red zone.
For all the talk about Cade Klubnik, he did not look good at all. He had a pick, and on multiple occasions he fumbled the exchange on a handoff.
Ball security was a massive issue for Clemson.
Klubnik averaged just 4.8 yards per attempts—209 yards on 43 passing attempts. That’s absolutely abysmal.
They had a field goal blocked in the first half, missed a field goal early in the second half, and turned the ball over three times, including twice inside of the Duke 10 yard line.
Defensively, Clemson was not great either. On that long touchdown run by the Duke QB Riley Leonard, Clemson had him stopped for about a 5 yard loss, but couldn’t bring him down and he got free for a 50 yard run. Just terrible tackling on that play.
Just a terrible performance by Clemson overall. You really couldn’t start the season of any worse.
Overall, I thought Cade Klubnik looked overrated and I don’t love Clemson’s skill position talent. There’s not a whole lot to write home about at the running back, receiver or tight end position.
We thought Clemson bringing in Garrett Riley to run the offense would get things back on track, but this was the worst offensive performance by Clemson in years.
The last time they scored in the single digits was the 2021 season opener against Georgia, where they lost 10-3. But that was against one of the greatest defenses in the history of college football. Other than that, you’d have to go back to the 2017 CFP semifinal game against Alabama, which Clemson lost 24-6. But again, that was against a great team—Alabama won the National Title that year.
I do think Clemson will improve as the season goes on. They have too much talent not to. This is a team that ranks 5th in the nation in the composite talent rankings with 56 combined 4 and 5 star players on their roster (out of 83 total players). But they are not going to be able to make the College Football playoff with a loss this bad on their resume.
As Uncle Lou on YouTube would say, “Clemson…. your season is over.”
So now this opens up the path for Florida State. FSU dominated LSU and will head to Clemson for a Week 4 showdown on the 23rd. Should Florida State win that game, as expected, they are basically home free. Their schedule is very front-loaded and they’ve already passed their toughest test with flying colors. Now it looks like the game we thought would be their second-toughest test might not be very tough at all.
They’ve got Southern Miss, then at Boston College, then at Clemson. If they’re 4-0, they’re golden. Because then it’s Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Duke (which is apparently no gimme), at Wake Forest, at Pitt, Miami, North Alabama, then finally at Florida in the annual rivalry game.
But Florida sucks this year.
So Clemson is really the only test for the Noles from this point forward. They have a great chance to be undefeated and make the playoff. There is no reason that they shouldn’t get there. The seas have parted for them. They will be favored, most of the time heavily, in every game they play this season. The only way they don’t make it to the playoff is if they get upset.
This is really the year for Florida State. This is the best chance they have had to win a Natty in a decade. All they have to do is not screw it up. It looks like it’s shaping up to be FSU vs North Carolina for the ACC crown, and since they don’t play in the regular season, that’s probably the odds-on favorite for the ACC Championship game.
As for Clemson, I would love to piss on their grave right about now. It’s really just Dabo I can’t stand, he’s probably my least favorite coach in college football. He’s just such a smarmy cornball. You can tell the guy just thinks he’s better than everyone, and always with the smug, sanctimonious attitude.
I can already picture him saying some corny shit like, “Duke? Well the only D.U.K.E. we know around here is Do U Kneel (to pray) Everynight?”
But like I said earlier, Clemson will regroup and recover from this. I highly doubt they end up going like 7-5 this year or something bad. They just have too many good players for that.
The one thing I will say, however, is that I have been predicting this ever since Trevor Lawrence left. Without a generational quarterback, Clemson is not one of those programs that can play at an elite level consistently. Without DeShaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence, they are not really “like that.” They’re a tier-2 program that can be a tier-1 program if they get a generational QB, but otherwise, they are not elite.
A big hidden culprit for the Clemson decline, though? This is something I harp on all the time: coordinator turnover. Losing Brent Venables and Tony Elliott after the 2021 season was a big deal.
They brought in Garrett Riley to turn the offense around but did you hear what Dabo said during his press conference after the game? He made it very clear that he didn’t bring in Garrett Riley to implement the TCU offense, he was brought in to run the Clemson offense. Big difference. So basically Dabo has the handcuffs on his highly-touted OC.
And this is pretty bad because the Clemson offense has not been working these past few years. Last year Clemson ranked 70th in the nation in offensive yards per play. The year before that, 100th.
They really thought all would be right again once they dumped DJ Uiagaleilei and put Cade Klubnik under center, but Klubnik looked just as bad as DJU did last year, arguably worse. In fact, Klubnik didn’t look all that great in the few games he did get the chance to start, so I don’t know where all this Heisman buzz came from.
DJU had his debut start for Oregon State on Sunday, and he was actually pretty damn good. 20/25 passing, 239 yards and 3 TDs with no picks. 9.6 yards per attempt. It’s just a one game sample size against San Jose State, to be sure, but those numbers far surpass his averages from 2021 and 2022 at Clemson.
Look, I don’t want to jump to conclusions too quickly here because that’s how you end up looking like an idiot, but what if DJU has a great season at Oregon State while Cade Klubnik continues to struggle? Maybe DJU wasn’t the problem, maybe it’s the Clemson offensive system that’s the problem. Maybe Dabo has failed to adapt and evolve. The guy who turns his nose up at NIL and the transfer portal is starting to look like a dinosaur.
I mean for Pete’s sake he’s got one legit offensive weapon on his team and it’s the running back Will Shipley. He’s the only bright spot for them. And it’s pretty crazy to think about considering this is the program of DeAndre Hopkins and Sammy Watkins and Mike Williams and Tee Higgins and Justyn Ross—Clemson used to have elite pass-catchers not all that long ago. These were all Dabo guys.
Georgia…. won
I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t catch any of Georgia’s game. I know they started kind of slow but ended up winning 48-7 over Middle Tennessee. Carson Beck from his box score numbers was pretty good but by no means amazing—look, I’m not really going to say too much about this game because I didn’t watch it.
We probably won’t know much about Georgia until at least week 3 when they play South Carolina, but even South Carolina looked pretty sorry in their loss to UNC this past week. But of Georgia’s first four games, South Carolina is the only Power Five opponent—the other two are Ball State and UAB.
Georgia gets the benefit of the doubt, though. Obviously.
Michigan also… won
Michigan’s game was on Peacock and I didn’t watch it. Very similar situation to Georgia: they don’t play a Power Five team until week 4, and that Power Five team happens to be Rutgers.
So Michigan opens up Big Ten play with Rutgers, and then at Nebraska and at Minnesota. I don’t think either Nebraska nor Minnesota is any good, but they’re on the road so maybe Michigan will get tested a bit? I doubt it but it’s possible if Nebraska starts looking better under Matt Rhule.
The first real game Michigan has is at Michigan State on October 21, and I don’t even know if Michigan State is any good. I’m skeptical of Mel Tucker. Really the season doesn’t even start for Michigan until they go to Penn State on November 11, then go to Maryland the week after that, and then host Ohio State on November 25. It’s a three game season for Michigan.
Harbaugh’s suspension is up after week three, but the next two weeks that have UNLV and Bowling Green.
Like with Georgia, I don’t really know what else to say here.
Ohio State Might Not Have a Quarterback?
I watched this game because it was on CBS and I wanted to not only see what the Big Ten on CBS felt like (weird but I’ll get used to it) but also see how Ohio State is handling their QB situation.
Turns out, they’re not handling it very well. I had heard for the past few weeks that Devin Brown was going to be the starter, and that Kyle McCord, who people assumed would be the starter once Stroud left for the NFL, wasn’t going to be able to win the starting job.
Well, McCord was the starter, they did give Brown a couple of series, but really Devin Brown did not see anywhere near enough action for anyone to draw any solid conclusions on him. Only had 6 snaps, I believe, with just one passing attempt. He didn’t get anywhere near anything that could be considered a fair audition.
But Kyle McCord didn’t look great. And that should be a bit worrying for Ohio State fans because if Devin Brown couldn’t beat him out, Ohio State might be looking at a situation they haven’t experienced in a long-ass time: not having a great quarterback.
It doesn’t look like they have one right now. And their offense line didn’t play well, either, particularly with run blocking.
I’m operating under the assumption that Ohio State is treating the first three games of the season like the preseason and going vanilla on offense to keep things under wrap for Notre Dame in week 4. That’s what Ohio State fans need to hope for.
Because right now, it does not look good on offense. Not at all.
Ohio State fans should be optimistic because Ryan Day does offense—specifically passing—better than just about anybody in the country. They’ve led the nation in offensive YPP the past two years, but obviously that was with CJ Stroud, and he’s in the NFL now.
Given Ryan Day’s track record, there’s no reason to believe he will field a bad offense this year. They have a new offensive coordinator, a new quarterback and basically a brand new offensive line. You’d like to see a stronger start than what they just showed us, but I think by now people should give Day the benefit of the doubt.
It wasn’t all bad for Ohio State, though. Their defense looked great. I know it was against Indiana, but I saw speed, aggression, hard hits, sound tackling in space and players being where they were supposed to be.
I don’t want to overreact too much but they looked legit on defense, which is welcome because they’ve been pretty terrible on defense for the past three years. It’s the sole reason they have fallen short of a National Championship in the Ryan Day era.
Way too early to cast any judgements on this Ohio State team, but my initial impression is: moderately concerned about the offense, cautiously optimistic about the defense.
Alabama’s Jalen Milroe Exceeded Expectations
My whole position on Alabama this season is as follows:
- Saban is past his prime. He’s about to be 72, this is about the age where Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno started falling off. It’s only natural that this happens. There is no way Saban will be able to remain the best coach in the sport well into his 70s, it’s literally never happened. We saw Bama last year lead the SEC in dropped passes, lead the NATION in penalties, and generally just play very uncharacteristically sloppy football. To me it’s all a sign that Saban is getting old. Especially given how many times their secondary got absolutely torched last season and secondary is supposed to be Saban’s unit.
- Bama is not maximizing talent, especially at the skill positions. Their wide receiver and running back talent is as low as it’s ever been under Saban even though they continue to pull in the best recruiting classes.
- They lost three superstar level players from last year: Bryce Young, Jahmyr Gibbs and Will Anderson. The Bryce Young loss is the most concerning, because he has basically carried that program the past two seasons. And Milroe is not anywhere near the passer Young is. Milroe is a great runner, but not even half the passer Bryce Young is.
- I just don’t see how they’re better this year than they were last year given that they are taking a massive step back at quarterback.
However, Jalen Milroe looked pretty good in week 1. Granted, it was against Middle Tennessee State, but he showed some arm talent that we did not see at all last season. Last year it looked like Milroe couldn’t throw the ball a lick, but apparently he’s been coached up pretty nicely by Tommy Rees in the offseason and has developed into a serviceable passer.
I thought before the season that Bama would be at least a 2 loss team, but probably 3-4 given how many times Bryce Young singlehandedly bailed them out last season.
I thought Bama would lose to Texas, LSU and Texas A&M, and possibly even Ole Miss and Tennessee.
But now I’m thinking there’s a decent chance Bama could go unbeaten in the regular season. And it’s not just because they beat Middle Tennessee 56-7—it’s because LSU looked like shit against Florida State in week 1, and because Texas didn’t look very good at all against Rice in week 1. I now think Bama should win both of those games—which are both at home for Bama, by the way.
I expected this season to be the coming out party for Quinn Ewers. He wasn’t great last year, but all reports from the offseason were that he had matured a lot and was about to take the leap. He cut off that ridiculous mullet, he talked about how he’s really committed himself—he seemed like he was really poised for a major breakout, and this would be the season he lived up to the hype of being the #1 overall recruit in the 2021 class.
But I wasn’t very impressed by his performance against Rice. I didn’t see a ton of improvement. I was expecting him to become elite, and make it clear that he was one of the very best quarterbacks in America. He just didn’t look very different from last year.
Perhaps Sark did that on purpose, didn’t want to show a lot against Rice so they could unleash him against Alabama. That might still be the case. But I’m not really expecting it, to be honest. I was just a bit disappointed by his performance against Rice because I was expecting to see elite: I was expecting to see a better performance than what he did.
And he wasn’t bad against Rice, I should add. His numbers were pretty decent (19/30 passing, 260 yards, 3 TDs, 0 picks) but I didn’t really see the slicing and dicing I was expecting. I saw great talent out of the skill players at Texas, I saw characteristically great play design and play calling by Sark (and you know I think he’s arguably the best in the business) and I saw a really tough defense, but I also saw Texas fail a few 4th and short conversions.
Look, I’m not saying Ewers was bad against Rice, but he wasn’t elite. And he needs to be elite if they’re going to beat Bama and make a run at the playoff. There’s just no two ways about it. Texas isn’t going to be “back” without Quinn Ewers playing at an elite level. It’s going to be yet another disappointing season for them.
I still think it’s possible Sark was playing it close to the vest and just not trying to put anything on tape for the Bama game, so I’m not completely out on Texas. But after the Bama-Texas game last year, my thought was “Texas is definitely winning next year.” Now I’m not sure I believe that.
Fade the Public 