Greg McElroy: Clemson has ‘work to do’ before contending in CFP race

Clemson has not met expectations at all through two games this season. Now, Greg McElroy has some real concerns about whether the Tigers will be able to do so after being anticipated to be one of the teams who could win it all in the College Football Playoff.

On ‘Always College Football’ earlier this week, McElroy shared 10 takeaways from the games during Week 2. One of those was that Clemson, once thought of as one of the most complete teams coming into this season, has a long way to go still, especially offensively. The Tigers ahve averaged just 18.5 points and 288.5 yards in total.

No. 12 Clemson, who barely made McElroy’s own Top 25 this week, sits at 1-1 after opening at home with a loss to LSU before being nearly upset by Troy. The film from last week, though, was even more concerning, considering how the Trojans, from out of the Sun Belt, chose to play defensively against the Tigers.

“Now, if you watched this game, and you watched Troy’s defense in this game? Their safeties on first and second down were playing about 8-10 yards deep. Why would they do that? They were literally daring Clemson to throw it over their head. They were not respecting the deep ball. They didn’t respect anything over the top,” McElroy said. “For the most part, they said, ‘You know what? We’re going to just tee off and we believe our pass rush can get home and affect Cade Klubnik, so you’re not going to have time to let those downfield routes develop.’ That’s basically what Troy said by watching the Clemson Tigers in week one against LSU.

“Troy said, ‘You know what? Here’s our recipe. They’re not going to be able to throw it over our head because we think we can get home. We think our pressure, our aggressiveness can get home so, hey, don’t worry about the deep ball. We’ll just play those safeties deep, get them involved in the run game and we’ll put all the pressure on Cade Klubnik and the passing attack to see if they can hold up long enough in protection to allow guys to open up downfield.’ And, guess what? It worked pretty well for an early portion of that game.”

That’s when McElroy got to Cade Klubnik, who has struggled early as compared to last season when he seemingly took the jump many had been waiting to see from him. However, through two games this year, Klubnik has completed just 59.7% of his throws for an average of 213 yards per game with a pair of passing touchdowns and interceptions apiece, one of which was a pick-six. McElroy also noted just how uncomfortable he looks so far, whether it be how quickly he’s coming out of the pocket or in getting connected with his targets in the pass game.

“Let’s talk about Cade Klubnik. He’s clearly uncomfortable right now, okay. And this is a guy that I think was so good last year, and so decisive last year, so accurate last year,” McElroy said. “There were a few times in this game where the protection is actually pretty good. It’s held up and guys are trying to work their routes downfield, and he’s leaving the pocket when he doesn’t need to. He’s actually making the integrity of the protection worse by getting on the move. He’s rolling into trouble, as we say, and that’s not a good sign for a guy that is now in year three as a starting quarterback.

“There were a handful of guys that were open, especially in the first half, and there were just misses. There were throws where he wasn’t on the same page with the wide receivers. So, he’s got to get on the same page with his wide receivers because those guys, at times, were not anticipating where he was throwing and he was not anticipating them sitting where they sat. That’s something that’s got to get cleaned up for somebody who has played a lot of football. You also have situations where just the next-level accuracy just needs to improve as well…If you look at the second half, much better – much, much better.”

Also, on offense, McElroy went into concerns at running back. Those have been known coming into the year, with Adam Randall, a converted wide receiver, leading the Tigers in rushing with 126 yards and two scores, but it’s now playing out with the Tigers posting just 75.5 yards on the ground at 3.0 per carry so far.

So, with how inefficient the offense has been, but paired still with one of the better defenses in the country, McElroy is most worried that Clemson is going to find itself in games that it is really going to have to fight for. That’s been the case in two games, and has reminded him of the Tigers’ issues in 2021 when they found themselves in seven one-score games.

“Here’s the thing that’s worrying me most about Clemson. The team is giving me some 2021 vibes a little bit,” McElroy said. “They ended up going and winning 10 games that year, so, I mean, like, a bad year for Clemson is a 10-win season. But, you look at how many dogfights they had in 2021. This team is kind of feeling like that right now.”

Whatever is up with Clemson right now, the it will will have to sort a lot of it out soon with conference play opening this weekend in the ACC. But, at some point, McElroy does still think the Tigers can get there over the course of this season.

“I think there’s a higher ceiling in there. I believe in Cade Klubnik. I believe in their weaponry offensively. I just want to see them play up to their potential, and we have not seen it yet in the first two weeks,” McElroy said. “I’m hoping it’s in there. I hope that it’s a team that has a higher ceiling than what we’ve witnessed so far. I think they’re great on defense. But, right now, the offense just seems a little bit shellshocked.

“So, here’s hoping the second half performance against Troy, where they really played much more efficient football? That’s what we will come to see from them as the season continues on.”