Going through the gears
Tigers show signs of progress in long march back to form
When it comes to judging Clemson’s performance in their season-opener against Georgia Tech, it’s important to use the right point of comparison.
No, this wasn’t a return to the unstoppable killing machine of days recently gone by.
But when you compare it to the struggles of the first two months of the 2021 season, your takeaways from a 41–10 victory over the Yellow Jackets should take on a considerably brighter viewpoint.
First and foremost, the defense still looks as salty as ever, even with its former head chef now in Norman, Okla. Wes Goodwin’s regular-season debut featured many of the same hallmarks of the days of Brent Venables — a defensive front dictating where the line of scrimmage should be, linebackers flying to the football and a secondary preventing big plays from beating them.
However, it was nothing we didn’t see a season ago from the Tiger defense, and yet the game was in no doubt come the fourth quarter, and that’s thanks to the second-half performance of the offense.
Clemson went away from home and beat a team by 25 more points than they did in Death Valley nearly 12 months prior. After a season with five of their six conference wins were by 10 points or fewer, the Tigers opened their ACC account by getting their backup quarterback some stress-free reps and refamiliarizing their fans with The Nepotism Point of a blowout.
No, D.J. Uiagalelei never looked like the Tiger greats at quarterback. But for someone who suffered so mightily with his confidence last year, it was impressive to see him shake off a rocky start and put together his best performance since the two-game cameo as a freshman that sent expectations into the stratosphere.
The echoes of his sophomore slump still popped up at times, but the accuracy on his throws was consistent throughout and he flashed with a couple of stellar passes down the field throughout the night. And yet even as he aired the ball out, the ball was never in jeopardy — even Uiagalelei’s first-quarter fumble which is better chalked up as a great defensive play. If not for a couple of drops by Tiger receivers, Uiagalelei’s stat line would’ve been more befitting his performance, and he would have been justified leaving the field thinking he did nothing to put his starting role at risk.
Of course, we must talk about what happened in the final offensive drive. Because that backup mentioned earlier made the most of his one opportunity. Cade Klubnik did nothing to quell the notion the Tigers have a budding quarterback controversy with an impressive touchdown drive leading a unit of marginal players in his first collegiate game action. The crispness of his movement and his passing lent credence to the notion that the next great Clemson quarterback may have skipped a generation again.
I think there’s something to the notion that Klubnik could’ve been held from action during the game to allow Uiagalelei to savor his performance without having to see what’s coming up in his rearview mirror. But when you consider an alternate universe where neither Uiagalelei nor Klubnik played well on Monday, it’s clear which universe the Tigers would prefer.
Now, it’s fine to point out the Tigers’ opponent on Monday may be in the bottom 3 of their hardest opponents of the season, and with the other 2 set to visit Memorial Stadium the next two weeks, we won’t truly know much about this team before they go on the road to reigning Atlantic Division Wake Forest at the end of September.
The Tigers met their first goal; they won the opener, and they did it going away. As a wise man liked to tell me when I was growing up, you can’t win them all without winning the first one.
It’s a long road to Charlotte. It’s an even longer one to Los Angeles.
But after a season stuck in neutral, the Tigers appear to be on the move again.
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Robbie Tinsley is an award-winning columnist from his time as the sports editor of The Journal in Seneca, S.C. He now works on a freelance basis from his home in Massachusetts. He can be reached either via Twitter @RTinMan13 or email at robtinsley13@gmail.com.
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This column also appears in the Saturday edition of The (Seneca) Journal on September 10th.
