Clemson Utilizing Tight Ends Pays Off in Offensive Resurgence
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Clemson's tight ends continue to have a big impact on the offensive resurgence in 2022.
In Saturday's 30-20 victory over NC State in a top-10 matchup, quarterback DJ Uiagalelei completed 21 passes to eight different players. A third of the targets and eight of the completions went to Clemson's tight ends.
In the biggest game of the season, Jake Briningstool caught four balls for 54 yards and scored a touchdown for the second consecutive week on a 7-yard TD pass from Uiagalelei. Davis Allen also had four receptions for 21 yards a week after he hauled in a pair of key touchdowns in the win at Wake Forest.
"That's one of the things that we worked on a good bit from the spring all the way through preseason camp is just utilizing that tight end room even more so," Clemson offensive coordinator Brandon Streeter said after the NC State win. "They've got to earn it and they earned it. It's week in and week out and they're showing up."
On the season, Briningstool and Allen have 14 and 13 receptions, respectively, ranking fourth and fifth, respectively, on the team in that category. They've also combined for five touchdowns.
It's also what they're doing to opposing defenses. Because Clemson can put both on the field or line either one of them up on the outside like a receiver or close to the line of scrimmage or even in an H-back role, it means the defense has to account for them on every play. That's opened up the entire offense and given a unit that struggled last year a ton of confidence in this 5-0 start to the season.
"It's been really important for us just because we've been able to utilize the tight ends in a lot of different ways," Streeter said. "Defenses have a hard time figuring out exactly where we're going to use them and whether they're in the box, using them as blockers or things like that, or we're going to spread them out.
We've got so much talent in that room and man, those guys are doing a great job of making plays when the ball is thrown to them, whether they're covered or not. And that's special and DJ I know is gaining more and more confidence with those guys. We're gonna continue to build on that."
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