Offense Needs to Develop Depth

Head coach Dabo Swinney wasted little time letting those who would listen following the Tigers 45-14 win over Florida State there was still a lot of areas where his team needs to improve if they are going to be an elite team. One of those areas was in their depth.

CLEMSON — Head coach Dabo Swinney wasted little time letting those who would listen following the Tigers 45-14 win over Florida State there was still a lot of areas where his team needs to improve if they are going to be an elite team.

One of those areas was in their depth.

“The depth of our team has to improve. Those guys have got to get better,” Swinney said. “The only way they’re going to get better is to play. When you play them you’ve got to live with it a little bit, but it gives us the opportunity to coach them and challenge them."

Apparently that sentiment has filtered down to the assistant coaches, as co-offensive coordinator Tony Elliott said that continuing to maintain their standard of play was what he was looking for out of the offense in the second half of the Tigers blowout win over Florida State.

"Same thing with us, the big challenge coming out of half was the first unit was going to get another opportunity, because I wanted to see how they were going to come out and how they were going to see if they had that eye of the tiger," Elliott said. "If they could figure out how to finish off an opponent, we come right out and we score. So then we started putting some guys in and didn't quite have the consistency and execution. 

"We were able to move the ball, score a couple of points in the second half, but want those guys to understand that the standard doesn't change and we're going to need those guys. I think he may have been referring to the defense, but we still got some guys on offense that we got to continue to develop to give us the depth we're going to need later in the season."

Part of building depth for Elliott is ensuring that he allows his running backs to get into games when the game is still in jeopardy — which is exactly what he did with backup running back Lyn-J DIxon.

"He's in there on tenth play of game," Elliott said. "That's something that you guys have been around me that know I kind of want these guys to almost be perfect, which is unfair at times, and I got to challenge myself to put them in there when the game's on the line early in the game, get them going and he's responding. I'm definitely pleased with his progress. He's really starting to lock in on the protections, so you feel comfortable, and especially with these odd defenses that we're playing and the multiple blitzes that they bring feel a lot more comfortable. 

"He did a good job, found a couple of creases, but still had some opportunity. I thought there were a couple of runs where he could've had better pad level, a little bit more violence, and we just got done going through a couple of those and so I'm encouraged with where he is."

Follow us on Twitter at @ClemsonSI and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ClemsonSI