Joel Klatt not entirely pinning Clemson's offensive issues on Cade Klubnik

Clemson has struggled, especially offensively, through the first three weeks of their season. That said, Joel Klatt says the Tigers’ issues on offense go beyond just the play of QB Cade Klubnik.

Klatt took another look at some of the nation’s top quarterbacks with their play over the first three weeks during his show on Wednesday. However, he, when it came to Klubnik, instead called it how he sees it with Clemson’s offense, which is a surprise to him too considering how many veterans and pieces they have on that unit.

“Everything is bad for that offense,” stated Klatt.

“You looked at the number of returning starters for Clemson? In this day and age, when we’ve seen the last two national champions, have several returning starters, and you can look at that blueprint and then you looked at Clemson in the offseason and you thought to yourself, man, that experience is going to pay huge dividends. This is going to be an incredible team,” Klatt said. “They’ve got experience at quarterback. They’ve got four offensive linemen back. A bunch of stuff to like…And they have not played well at all.”

During their 1-2 start, Clemson is averaging just 19.3 points and 319.3 yards per game, which are both outside the Top-100 nationally in scoring and total offense respectively. Part of that is due to a run game that there were concerns about coming in, and has since been proven at only 108.3 rushing yards per game, but with the passing offense not being that much better with Klubnik. Their unit has also been able to just stay on the field, having lost time of possession in each game so far with only eight trips to the red zone all season. They’ve given away as many turnovers as they’ve forced too with five, four of which are from Klubnik himself.

Speaking of, Klubnik has, through three games, regressed back after having a career year last fall. He’s currently at 59.1% completion for 663 yards, three touchdowns, and three interceptions with one pick thrown in each game so far. He’s then at a one-to-one touchdown-to-turnover ratio overall with a rushing score but also a lost fumble.

However, again, Klatt thinks this is a Clemson offense issue rather than a Klubnik one. Klubnik hasn’t played to the level we all thought he would coming off last fall, but he’s just one piece of this problematic puzzle. That might then be even worse for the Tigers as Klatt didn’t see one specific fix they could make right now to improve, whether that be by this week or over the rest of this season.

“To me, the Clemson problems on offense are a more holistic problem than specific to Klubnik,” said Klatt. “He has been under duress. They have not been able to run the football. Antonio Williams, his best wide receiver, has not been on the field. So, I don’t want to pin this directly on Klubnik, even though he has not played well. I’m not trying to give him a pass by any stretch of the imagination, but I am telling you it’s more than Klubnik and it’s a holistic problem.”

“I don’t know where the fix is for Clemson. I don’t know if it’s going to get a lot better for Clemson during the course of the year,” Klatt continued. “There’s nowhere where I can be like, ‘Hey, if they just have this small tweak’, ‘If he just plays a little bit better!’, ‘If they get that guy back and healthy!’. They’re saying it’s Antonio Williams, but I’m just telling you right now. I think it’s a bigger deal than one player. It’s a bigger deal than their quarterback specifically and it’s a bigger deal than just Antonio Williams not being on the field.”

Klatt isn’t sure what the answers to some of these problems can be, especially in the short term. Still, Clemson has another conference game this weekend before a bye where they can maybe really get into what may be going wrong for this offense under OC Garrett Riley.

“Clemson’s issues are an offensive issue. It’s holistic. Don’t know where the fix is coming from,” said Klatt. “That team is going to have to get better in a hurry, even though their league is obviously not great.”