Clemson's Offensive Self-Scouting Report

CLEMSON—The Clemson coaching staff went back to work this week after enjoying a week off from playing a game, as the Tigers enjoyed their first of two bye weeks this season.

But just because the Tigers had an off-week from football games, did not mean they took a week off. Instead they turned the windshield that head coach Dabo Swinney preaches—looking forward, instead of backward—into a mirror, as the Tigers did a lot of self-scouting last week in hopes of getting better.

I think overall, as we look at our offense and look at each position, it's really just kind of locking in on maybe some of the reasons why we haven't executed," co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott said. "A lot of it is, I mean, it's real boring stuff. It's communication, it's alignment, it's assignments, it's being on the same page. It's just kind of that ... The very small things of what we do. That really is the biggest thing, and just allowing those guys now that we've had five games to kind of put that on paper and put some video in front of them to show them that, 'Hey, we know what we're doing and we're using the proper technique. We're able to execute, and that play looks really good. When we don't, this is what it looks like.'

"So I think just kind of learning from that overall. But I mean, there's definitely some things that we were able to see this past week that we knew that we had some tendencies on that maybe we want to try to counter that here as we move forward."

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The Tigers spent the bye week trying to put in a plan to break those tendencies that have built up through the first five games, as they prepare for a matchup with Atlantic Division rival Florida State Saturday (3:30 p.m., ABC).

"So I think number one, it's as coaches, okay, after five games, Florida State has two weeks to kind of get ready," Scott said. "What are they seeing, whether it's our run pass or certain formations or certain motions or certain alignments. So those are things we got a great support staff that really breaks all that down and writes all that on the board. So as we go to game plan, we try to play to counter some of those tendencies."

While the exact details of what the Tigers' learned during their week of self-scouting is unknown to everyone except the team, one thing was made clear by Scott—you only have tendencies if you are a good offensive/ defensive team.

"I don't want to get into the details of that obviously because that kind of leads into maybe some things that we'll want to do Saturday and moving forward," Scott said. "But I think overall, the biggest thing that there obviously are ... When you're a good offense or you're a good defense, you're going to have some tendencies. That's just part of it.

"I think some of the teams that don't have any tendencies, it's because they're just running a bunch of stuff, trying to find something to get good at."

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