2023 ACC News & Discussion

[Papa Foxtrot]

every kid who lands at a big D1 program has been outstanding (and reminded that they are outstanding) for most of their lives. Some are seeing adversity for the first time and some have never had to learn how to handle success. Dealing with those things is harder to teach than football

Just one of the many reasons that I couldn't be a college football coach....

 

[g0lftime]

Dabo is kind of a goof and “lighten up the bandwagon” is a very odd thing to say but I think it just reiterates again how hard it is to keep the focus and intensity of 18-23 year olds. I’m sure he is referring to the attitude many of them have that “they’ve arrived” once they strap up that Clemson helmet. Not unique to Clemson of course… every kid who lands at a big D1 program has been outstanding (and reminded that they are outstanding) for most of their lives. Some are seeing adversity for the first time and some have never had to learn how to handle success. Dealing with those things is harder to teach than football

He lost his top two coordinators and isn't willing to go into the portal. So far the new OC hasn't been exceptional. He hasn't had a great QB since Lawrence but some of that may be the OC.

 

[slugboy]

He lost his top two coordinators and isn't willing to go into the portal. So far the new OC hasn't been exceptional. He hasn't had a great QB since Lawrence but some of that may be the OC.

He hired an OC who knows the Riley offense, has him coach the Dabo Swinney scheme, and keeps all the rest of the coordinators.

If I was a USA track coach, and saw that we kept losing 100m sprints to Jamaica, it’d be foolish for me to put Michael Phelps in track because he succeeded in 100m swimming.

Riley should have turned that job down.

 

[GTJake]

He lost his top two coordinators and isn't willing to go into the portal. So far the new OC hasn't been exceptional. He hasn't had a great QB since Lawrence but some of that may be the OC.

I don't dislike Dabo, but I did get tired of his schtick, as for the Clemson fans, they got really too big for their britches. I know first hand, I have a couple good friends from that crowd.

 

[g0lftime]

He hired an OC who knows the Riley offense, has him coach the Dabo Swinney scheme, and keeps all the rest of the coordinators.

If I was a USA track coach, and saw that we kept losing 100m sprints to Jamaica, it’d be foolish for me to put Michael Phelps in track because he succeeded in 100m swimming.

Riley should have turned that job down.

Everyone thought he was a great hire. For whatever reason it hasn't worked out that great so far. Their QB is young so he may develop into a Heisman someday. Dabo might actually hit the portal. Coaches usually do whatever it takes to keep their job.

 

[CEB]

He lost his top two coordinators and isn't willing to go into the portal. So far the new OC hasn't been exceptional. He hasn't had a great QB since Lawrence but some of that may be the OC.

The portal thing is a head scratcher for me. I’m sure he’s losing kids through the portal… kinda strange that he is adamant not to use it to recoup. I guess he markets to his recruits that they won’t get supplanted by portal players? If you can recruit well enough, that probably works. His bigger problem may be that he no longer beats out UGA for Georgia recruits.

 

[CEB]

He hired an OC who knows the Riley offense, has him coach the Dabo Swinney scheme, and keeps all the rest of the coordinators.

If I was a USA track coach, and saw that we kept losing 100m sprints to Jamaica, it’d be foolish for me to put Michael Phelps in track because he succeeded in 100m swimming.

Riley should have turned that job down.

From a 100% outsiders perspective, Dabo’s entire claim to fame seemed to be “surround yourself with people smarter than you are.” If he has graduated to micromanagement now that he has had some success, he’s getting what he deserves.

 

[Techster]

He’ll retire there unless the wheels fall off.

For the expectations Dabo built, the wheels feel like they're coming off for Clemson. Clemson just paid Garrett Riley a lot of money to OC for Dabo, and it's not working out (Clemson rumor is Dabo is meddling with Garrett's offense). They're also not happy Dabo isn't willing to get players from the portal. Give credit to Dabo for building a program with annual national championship expectations, but it's looking like Dabo may be getting crushed from the weight of expectations he built.

 

[RamblinRed]

Alot of Clemson fans have been complaining that he hired Riley but is making him run the 'Clemson Offense' rather than getting to run what he would like to run.

I think Dabo may even have mentioned this in one of his press conferences. If that is really true than that is a big waste of money.

 

[ibeattetris]

I doubt we would have to make two West coast trips in the same season. But with the ACC, you never know.

If this were ACC scheduling in the CPJ era we’d have a Saturday game at Syracuse followed by a Thursday at Stanford with both teams having a bye week before the game.

I’m glad they changed the bye week rules.

 

[Root4GT]

Alot of Clemson fans have been complaining that he hired Riley but is making him run the 'Clemson Offense' rather than getting to run what he would like to run.

I think Dabo may even have mentioned this in one of his press conferences. If that is really true than that is a big waste of money.

This offseason will be very interesting for Clemson. Will Dabo adapt to the new reality of college football or not. If he does then Clemson will be good to very good. If not they will have a ceiling at good.

 

[g0lftime]

This offseason will be very interesting for Clemson. Will Dabo adapt to the new reality of college football or not. If he does then Clemson will be good to very good. If not they will have a ceiling at good.

He may miss the covid window for an extra year. That will be dropping off and we will see fewer 6 year players.

 

[ibeattetris]

We're witnessing the last days of Dabo at Clemson

“Honestly, maybe we need to lose a few games & lighten up the bandwagon. Sometimes the bandwagon can get a little too full” Might be one of the worst things a coach could say in college football in 2023. It's probably a wrong opinion, but I have never thought Dabo was a good coach; just fortunate to be surrounded by good people at the right time. I don't think there was a coach in a better position to transition into the NIL era than Clemson, and Dabo found a way to Clemson that too.

If NC State pulls out a win next week, Clemson is going to be fighting just to be bowl eligible this year.

 

[RamblinRed]

Clemson, right now they have a QB that was super highly decorated, but has had TO issues.
A WR group that doesn't appear to have much in the way of difference makers.
an OL that is not very good at run or pass blocking.

When you look at the stats - both overall and conference-only, Clemson's offense tends to be very close to GT's offense, but Clemson's defense is alot better than GT's defense.

In relation to defense, GT's rush defense numbers are almost unfathomably bad. Overall we are allowing 50 ypg more than the next closest ACC defense and in ACC only games it is almost 60 ypg.
GT's D gives up more than 100 ypg more than Clemson's D.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

I always felt like, if we had Clemson’s defense, we would have played for several national championships the past 20 years.

 

[g0lftime]

Clemson, right now they have a QB that was super highly decorated, but has had TO issues.
A WR group that doesn't appear to have much in the way of difference makers.
an OL that is not very good at run or pass blocking.

When you look at the stats - both overall and conference-only, Clemson's offense tends to be very close to GT's offense, but Clemson's defense is alot better than GT's defense.

In relation to defense, GT's rush defense numbers are almost unfathomably bad. Overall we are allowing 50 ypg more than the next closest ACC defense and in ACC only games it is almost 60 ypg.
GT's D gives up more than 100 ypg more than Clemson's D.

We have to get turnovers to win. We don't do very well otherwise.

 

[RamblinRed]

We have to get turnovers to win. We don't do very well otherwise.

We are +7 in TO margin in our 2 FBS wins. -6 in our our 4 losses.

I don't expect us to win any game where we have a negative TO margin.
I said going into the BC game I would be watching 2 things. Could we keep Castellanos in check (no), and how would the TO battle play out (not in our favor).

Another interesting note. We are one of the worst teams in the country in time of possession (114th nationally - 27:41). We leave our defense out for a long time - the defense is not blameless here as they have issues getting stops and getting off the field.

 

[slugboy]

We have to get turnovers to win. We don't do very well otherwise.

We are +7 in TO margin in our 2 FBS wins. -6 in our our 4 losses.

I don't expect us to win any game where we have a negative TO margin.
I said going into the BC game I would be watching 2 things. Could we keep Castellanos in check (no), and how would the TO battle play out (not in our favor).

Another interesting note. We are one of the worst teams in the country in time of possession (114th nationally - 27:41). We leave our defense out for a long time - the defense is not blameless here as they have issues getting stops and getting off the field.

Shared in another thread in the last week, the 5 factors:
Explosiveness, efficiency, field position, finishing drives, and turnovers are the five factors to winning football games.

• If you win the explosiveness battle (using PPP), you win 86 percent of the time.
• If you win the efficency battle (using Success Rate), you win 83 percent of the time.
• If you win the drive-finishing battle (using points per trip inside the 40), you win 75 percent of the time.
• If you win the field position battle (using average starting field position), you win 72 percent of the time.
• If you win the turnover battle (using turnover margin), you win 73 percent of the time.

• Our success rate is #111 in the country.
• Our starting field position is #24
• Our explosive plays are mid (meh)
• Our Drive Finishing has improved, but is not impressive on offense (it’s been pretty good on defense, aside from games like Ole Miss and BC and BG where we fall apart)
• Turnovers are split between giving us wins over Miami and gutting us vs BC

Oh, if you don’t run against us, then you must not be able to

Against the Run
Plays	210
Plays/Game	42 T-#130
Total EPA	15.62 #98
EPA/Play	0.07 #98
EPA/Game	3.12 #106
Success Rate	41.9% #84

​

 

[Root4GT]

We are +7 in TO margin in our 2 FBS wins. -6 in our our 4 losses.

I don't expect us to win any game where we have a negative TO margin.
I said going into the BC game I would be watching 2 things. Could we keep Castellanos in check (no), and how would the TO battle play out (not in our favor).

Another interesting note. We are one of the worst teams in the country in time of possession (114th nationally - 27:41). We leave our defense out for a long time - the defense is not blameless here as they have issues getting stops and getting off the field.

Our offense does have too many 3 or 4 play drives. We also have had several long scoring plays this year. The defense is really bad on all downs! Actually we really struggle to stop opponents running games which chews up time of possession.

 

[GTJake]

I'm not a stats guy, IMO they can be misleading at times. We have a new DC, most of the stats are from before the new hire. We played good defense against a strong Miami offense and got chewed up by a duel-threat QB, his sample size is too small yet to determine his defenses rankings. While there is no doubt we are weak against the run and need upgrades to our front 7, especially LB IMO, lets see how this plays out through the last 5 games before we determine just how bad we are .... if you get too hung up on statistics you can get blind-sided, just ask the Braves.