Film room: Return of the deep ball?

I am writing this article to come clean. I gave out some incorrect information before last season. I also write for K-State’s website and have watched/written about Garrett Riley and TCU’s offense on multiple occasions.

The offense that won him the job at Clemson wasn’t that complex.

Step 1:

Harass teams between the tackles with star running back Keandre Miller (244 ATT, 1,399 YDS, 6.2 AVG, 17 TD), human cannonball quarterback Max Duggan (137 ATT, 423 YDS, 3.1 AVG, 9 TD) and capable backup Emari Demercaco (121 ATT, 681 YDS, 5.6 AVG, 6 TD) until they get tired of being harassed between the tackles and bring a safety into the box.

Step 2:

Identify the one-on-one matchup and let it fly. TCU didn’t throw the ball often, but when they did, it flew far down the field. Top 6-foot-4 receiver Quentin Johnston (60 REC, 1,069 YDS, 17.8 AVG, 6 TD) played the role of the Frisbee-catching dog on the sideline. Whenever the defense left a corner on an island, the ball flew deep down the sideline to him.

If it wasn’t Johnston deep in a corner, it was the speedy slot receiver Taye Barber (37 REC, 613 TDS, 16.6 AVG, 5 TDS) who exploited the gap between the linebackers and safeties (not between the defensive line and the linebackers).

Johnston worked far down the field and Barber worked far across the field.

You could compare the offense to a boxer. Riley hit, hit, hit until the defensive coordinator got tired of getting punched in the ear and then he delivered a knockout left hook.

It was simple, effective, and didn’t necessarily require an elite quarterback. It put TCU in the national championship game and landed Riley in Tigertown.

my mistake

I thought Riley would bring his entire offense to Clemson, but for the most part he only brought Step 1.

Instead of a deep passing game based on a strong running game, Clemson relied on a shallow passing game based on a strong running game.

Instead of the passing game complementing the running game, both served the same function.

Step 1

Beat the teams between the tackles with Phil Mafah (179 ATT, 965 YDS, 5.4 AVG, 13 TD) and Will Shipley (167 ATT, 827 YDS, 5 TD) and then hope Cade Klubnik doesn’t get tackled while running backwards (125 ATT, 182 TDS, 4 TD).

Step 2

Throw the ball short in the huddle and hope a receiver breaks a tackle rather than getting stopped short of a first down or goal line. Tyler Brown was a solid slot receiver (52 REC, 531 YDS, 10.2 AVG, 4 TDS), but Beaux Collins (38 REC, 510 YDS, 13.4 AVG, 3 TDS) didn’t even come close to Quentin Johnston in terms of win percentage.

Simply put, Garrett Riley’s offense doesn’t work without a receiver capable of making plays down the field on a consistent basis. I thought Clemson would establish someone (anyone?) as an outside threat, but that never happened.

Getting back to boxing, Clemson was all about jabs and no left hooks. Their only choice was to hit a team with jabs and hope they eventually caved (thanks, Notre Dame!). The offense couldn’t shut anyone down, and when you let teams stick around, you lose games you shouldn’t lose (stare at Duke, NC State, and Miami records).

I had to go back to the Big 12 Championship game between TCU and Kansas State to remember how the Garrett Riley offense that Clemson acquired worked. It didn’t take long to find the perfect play.

Education

attack

staff

11 (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR)

defense

staff

3-3-5

This is TCU’s second play of the game. Keandre Miller got a handoff up the middle for 3 yards on 1st down. TCU sets up 11 men with the slot on the far side of the field.

K-State has played TCU once before and knows they want to establish the run early. Defensive coordinator Joe Klanderman opts to man-line with a deep safety in the middle to get his strong safety into the running box.

Simple decision

Duel to watch

Yellow Box

6’4” Quinten Johnston (San Diego Chargers) against the 1.90 m tall Josh Brents (Indianapolis Colts)

Max Duggan wants his favorite receiver in a one-on-one matchup, and he doesn’t care about down, distance, or field position. It doesn’t matter that he’s going up against a first-round cornerback who, with his unique physical skills, matches up better against Johnston than pretty much any other cornerback in college football, because Duggan knows his guy will win.

bait

Green Box

Taye Barber’s job is to clear the slot corner and make sure he doesn’t interfere with the play.

Reading

Duggan reads the deep safety. It’s hard to tell from this angle, but you can see that the safety is aligned closer to the short (boundary side) than the wide (field side). I suspect Max Duggan notices this.

3-man route

Riley has the running back block in the backfield instead of letting him run out as a receiver. He is not interested in a 2nd and 3 in his own territory. He has his opponent outside and Duggan needs time to throw the ball his way.

The tight end serves as an emergency safety valve, but as soon as Duggan saw man coverage on the outside, the ball went outside. Honestly, they could have left the tight end in to block. The ball can only go one way.

Clear the sidelines

Barber stops his route at the posts, keeping his defender out of the way and potentially drawing the middle safety’s attention for a split second. This is a very common route combination. Every team that throws the ball runs something similar. The beauty of this play is its simplicity. It’s a pitch and catch game between Duggan and Johnston.

Johnston wins

Did you notice that Johnston wouldn’t let Brents (an extremely physical corner) force him to the sideline? That was something that Clemson receivers struggled with last season. On the rare occasions that the Tigers actually attacked further down the field, Cade was throwing to a postage stamp sized target because his receiver was pinned to the sideline.

Duggan isn’t an elite passer by any means, but Johnston gives him all the space he needs to drop the ball over his outside shoulder, and there’s still plenty of room left. When Cade tried to drop the ball over an outside shoulder last year, the pass was usually snatched by someone in civilian clothes because they had no room on the field to hold it.

Simple but effective

Duggan drops the ball in the basket, Johnston catches it (that body catch caused him a lot of trouble in the NFL, but works well here), and instead of having to get 5 first downs to reach midfield, Riley and TCU do it in 2 plays.

What happened last season?

Most of it comes down to personnel. Clemson had the running backs and the quarterback (Cade is more than capable of playing the role of Max Duggan), but they didn’t have Quentin Johnston.

In a program that built its reputation on the likes of Sammy Watkins, Nuk Hopkins, Martavis Bryant, Mike Williams, Tee Higgins and Justyn Ross, there wasn’t a single player who could do even a bad Quentin Johnston imitation.

Photo by Perry Knotts/Getty Images

I rewatched the film and Cade and Beaux had that look multiple times per game, but the ball rarely went that way. That’s not Garrett Riley’s offense, and if you take that out of Riley’s offense, you might as well hire any spread offensive coordinator from the MAC instead of paying Riley obscene amounts of money to coach like any spread offensive coordinator from the MAC (too hard?)

The ability to get far forward is what makes Riley’s offense unique.

Is it fixed?

Perhaps?

Clemson brought in TJ Moore, a 6-foot-3, 200-pound five-star wide receiver from Tampa, and Bryant Wesco Jr., a 6-foot-2, 182-pound four-star receiver from Midlothian, Texas, to add some momentum to the receiver lineup.

Will Cade trust them to throw the above pass against Georgia?

Perhaps?

Cole Turner is back after playing in just two games last season due to injury, and he and Cade showed solid chemistry in a limited sample size during the 2022-23 season.

Does Cade have enough confidence in Cole Turner to throw that pass, and is Cole Turner physical enough to not be pushed to the bench area on a Georgia corner?

Perhaps?

Adam Randall was once considered the next Nuk Hopkins, but he’s been mostly injured so far. All those muscles look great when you step off the bus, but he rarely got a chance to use them.

Does Cade have enough faith in Adam Randall to throw that pass and let Randall become the bully we were promised when Clemson signed him?

Is Randall even that guy?

Perhaps?

Finally

Clemson needs to attack down the field against Georgia and every other team on their schedule. At one point, Clemson had the most explosive offense in the nation. Last season, it looked like a slightly better version of Iowa.

In my humble and unimportant opinion, Clemson’s season depends on someone stepping in at wide receiver and having enough confidence in Cade to release the ball in a timely manner. If that happens, this offense will be hard to stop because of Mafah’s ability to gain yards and punish tacklers.

This will be open early because I bet Kirby isn’t a big fan of “maybe” and will let Cade and the receivers prove it early and possibly often before he sends a safety out of the box.

If Clemson has to win this game against Georgia’s defense by every 10-yard gain, it’s going to get ugly. The deep passing game was lacking last season. Most teams would try to fix the problem in the portal, but Dabo trusts his star freshman and returning underachievers on the outside to fix the problem.

Not only will the game against Georgia (and all of the important games on the schedule) depend on Clemson’s ability to throw the ball far, but it is also a proof of concept for Dabo and his team.

If they do it right, there’s no reason the Tigers can’t reclaim their place among college football’s elite. If they do it wrong and can’t throw the ball far, we’re in for another long season where Clemson can win or lose most games because they can’t shut anyone down. If that happens, Dabo and Co. will have even more questions to answer come the end of the season.

It’s strange how much depends on Clemson’s ability to execute one of the most basic plays in football.