Dabo Swinney labels Clemson offense ‘incomplete’ exiting spring

The Clemson Tigers football program is on a quest to reclaim its crown as king of the ACC and earn a spot in this year’s College Football Playoff. The field will be expanded to 12 teams starting this season, with the kings of the ACC conference earning an automatic bid. However, Dabo Swinney and company would likely prefer to dominate in 2024 and remind the rest of the college football world how formidable the Tigers program is.

In order to do that, Clemson will need to continue to take steps in the right direction on the offensive side of the ball. This will be the second season with Garrett Riley running the show. So, how has the Tigers’ offense looked thus far during spring practice? According to Swinney, “incomplete.”

“I mean I think we’re more confident. We are more confident than what we were this time last year, but we are still incomplete,” said Swinney.

There’s a good reason why Swinney sees his Tigers’ offense as incomplete currently. Too many players are missing for him to give an approximate evaluation of how they have fared during this year’s spring practices.

“No Cole Turner, we didn’t have Tyler Brown out there, didn’t have (Troy) Stellato, and we have TJ Moore coming this summer; We didn’t have Noble Johnson out there. So those are all guys; when we become a complete group, we’ve got a chance to be really good.”

“And they should. There’s a lot of guys back… mostly everybody’s back for this offense in year two of this system. We got a chance to be a much more confident group. And our quarterback taking another step is going to be a big part of that.”

As Swinney highlighted, Clemson did not lose a significant amount of its offensive talent to the 2024 NFL Draft. That is huge given the strides some of its conference foes, such as Florida State, Miami, and Louisville, have made in recent years.

One of the more significant things Swinney highlighted that he is expecting to help get his Clemson squad to elevate their game next season is the growth of quarterback Cade Klubnik. Klibnik had plenty of highs and lows last season for the Tigers in his first year in Riley’s system. Last season, the Clemson quarterback was able to complete nearly 64 percent of his pass attempts while throwing for 19 touchdowns to just nine interceptions in his first year as the Tigers’ full-time starter.

There is still plenty of time for Swinney to get a full picture of how his offense will look as Clemson transitions into the next part of the off-season. The Tigers still have fall camp to tackle before their first game of the 2024 season against one of the powers of the SEC, the Georgia Bulldogs.