2013-14 Preview (ACC) Clemson
The Clemson Tigers should definitely be considered among a handful of teams capable of winning the national championship this final season of the BCS. They have a very good base of talent, a schedule that is challenging enough to put them in the equation and seem to have found the ability not to fall completely apart when you least expect, the way a number of Clemson teams have done in the past.
Clemson Tigers
Coach: Dabo Swinney
2012 Record: 11-2
Odds of winning BCS Championship: +2500
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The season is fast approaching and there is going to be a lot of excitement in Palmetto State. These guys are primed and ready.
The one thing that gives me, and probably others, pause is coach Dabo Swinney. He has been excellent in terms of ramping up the recruiting and hiring top notch coordinators but he has yet to prove that he can be a successful big game coach. The biggest win of his career was probably beating LSU in the Chick fil A bowl last season but that is hardly one to hang your hat on.
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He will have lots of chances to prove us wrong throughout this season beginning with the opener against Georgia but if he doesn’t I wouldn’t be surprised to see the program start loking for somebody else to get them over the hump.
If QB Tajh Boyd has entered the 2013 NFL Draft he might have been the first player taken at his position. He had a fantastic season last year and even though top receiver DeAndre Hopkins did move on to the NFL he should have another one, this time zeroing in on fast playmaker Sammy Watkins more often.
Boyd is as valuable to this Clemson team as Heismann winner QB Johnny Manziel is to Texas A&M as demonstrated by the fact that he also the team’s leading returning rusher. As long as he is not the leading rusher at the end of the season Clemson should do very well this season.
The graduation of 1000 yard RB Andre Ellington puts a lot of scrutiny on senior running back Roderick McDowell. Ellington had great burst and was a good enough threat to enable the Tigers to get the matchups they wanted in the passing game, which were almost always in their favour. [soliloquy id=”82219″]
McDowell is finally getting his chance and is fortunate to have 4 returning starters on the offensive line to open up some holes. Boyd always takes more sacks than you think a guy with his athleticism should but it is often because he waits for big plays to develop. The line is generally pretty good. Clemson was 9th in total yards in the nation last season.
Defensively every starter but one returns from the front seven. Unfortunately Those guys led the Tigers to a mediocre defensive performance with the exception of points allowed where they were third in the ACC.
The starting line and linebackers will all be juniors and seniors and they need to start living up to their recruiting clippings and becoming a dominant unit to help out the backend. In the secondary only one starter returns from a unit that was 71st against the pass last year.
Like up front there is experience though, as only the lone returning starter, S Travis Blanks, is an underclassmen.
If they are going to be considered an elite team capable of beating anyone in the nation the defense has to be better this season.
2013-14 Record Projection: 11-1
This is a very good Clemson team but not one I think can win two games against the elite of the SEC (Georgia and South Carolina). I am not sure whether they lose to Georgia to start the season or create a lot of buzz by carrying a perfect record into their final game against the Gamecocks.
Either way it will still be a very good season and in either of those games taking them as an underdogs is a good bet (if you can get it). In the ACC this team is totally ready to dominate.
In the Atlantic Division it should come down to whoever can win between the Tigers and the Florida State Seminoles.
Clemson has the advantage of hosting FSU in Death Valley this year which might be a little too much for a relatively inexperienced FSU squad. Other than that their ACC schedule is super easy as they miss any team that could give them a game from the Coastal Division such as Miami, North Carolina, Virginia Tech.
They do get Georgia Tech to close the ACC season but it is at home and they handled them easily last year.
2013 Clemson Schedule
AUG 31 – Georgia
SEP 7 -South Carolina State
SEP 19 – NC State
SEP 28 – Wake Forest
OCT 5 – @Syracuse
OCT 12 – Boston College
OCT 19 – Florida State
OCT 26 – @Maryland
NOV 2 – @Virginia
NOV 14 – Georgia Tech
NOV 23 – The Citadel
NOV 30 – @South Carolina
