Andy Staples: If Clemson's offense looks like it did against Duke, 'that team's going 7-5'

The talk of college football this week has been Clemson following Monday’s game against Duke. The Tigers struggled mightily en route to the 28-7 loss to the Blue Devils, fumbling multiple times in the red zone and only scoring one touchdown.

However, Dabo Swinney expressed optimism about the state of his offense, which averaged 4.9 yards per pass attempt in the game.

“If we do what we did offensively for the rest of the year, we won’t lose another game,” Swinney said Wednesday, via On3’s Matt Connolly. “It’s just that simple.”

As On3’s Andy Staples noted, Clemson’s offense did some good things against Duke. However, the bad outweighed the good, which is why he disagreed with Swinney’s assessment of the situation.

“I’d say yes. If you average 5.3 yards a carry for the rest of the year, that’s great. But if you average [4.9] yards a pass attempt — which you averaged on Monday against Duke — you will definitely not win every game this year,” Staples said on Andy Staples On3. “You will not go 11-1. One thing, Duke may not be the best defense you play. Mike Elko, great defensive tactician, and Duke’s talent has obviously been upgraded in the Elko era. So they are one of the better teams that Clemson will play. But in terms of defense right now, Florida State, NC State, Notre Dame, probably more talented on defense than Duke. I mean, almost definitely more talented on defense than Duke. Miami, probably more talented than than Duke on defense. This is not going to be easy for them. That doesn’t make any sense.

“And I realize you’re trying to get your team back after a pretty devastating loss. I mean, that is a tough way to lose a game. But the other problem that should scare you if you’re Dabo Swinney is you also gave up 6.6 yards a carry at Duke. I don’t know that Duke’s gonna have the best rushing attack of any team you play, either. This is bad. This is very bad. … If they do what they did offensively against Duke, if they do that again, if that is the offense we’re gonna see this season, that team’s going 7-5. If the offense is a little bit better, yes, they may win eight, nine, 10 games. Maybe they’re 11-1 if the offense improves dramatically. But if they do what they did the other night — minus the fumbles in the red zone — they’re gonna lose a bunch of games.”

Andy Staples: There’s ‘a lot of work to be done at Clemson’

Clemson’s road to a strong end of the season isn’t an easy one. The Tigers have multiple ranked teams on their schedule, including Florida State and Notre Dame. They also have strong defenses — even better than Duke’s.

So while Staples said Clemson can prove everyone wrong, it might be asking a lot of the struggling offense.

“Maybe Dabo’s right. Maybe they go 11-1 for the rest of the season. I just, I can’t see it,” Staples said. “It is very hard to imagine based on what we saw at the end of the game the other night with Duke just ramming the ball down Clemson’s throat. That was probably the most shocking part of it. I was at the Florida State-LSU game on Sunday, and it was very similar to how Florida State did LSU in the second half where it kept going and going and getting worse and worse, and then at the end, Florida State was just roaring through LSU. And that’s the same thing Duke was doing to Clemson, which is stunning to see because Clemson’s defense just doesn’t let that happen very often.

“So a lot of work to be done at Clemson, and I get that Dabo needs to stay positive and keep his team up and maybe he’s ripping them behind the scenes and trying to put a good face on it for the public. But no. What they did the other night will not be good enough. It will not win them the rest of their games. It’s just that simple.”