Tony Elliott breaks down Clemson offensive problems, DJ Uiagalelei growing pains

After hearing from head coach Dabo Swinney over the weekend, Clemson officer coordinator Tony Elliott gave his take on what happened Saturday. As offensive coordinator, Elliott is the play-caller for the Tigers. So he better than anybody else would be able to explain the sluggish start from their offense.

Offensive woes

“The biggest thing is we’re just out of sync right now and it’s ten guys and one guy not doing the right thing. Or, it’s nine and you got two guys not doing the right thing. And some of that can be contributed to the game speed is a little bit different, and it takes time to kinda work through those things to anticipate. Some of those mistakes were from the younger guys,” Elliott said answering the question of offensive issues he saw.

“From a quarterback’s perspective, you know we gotta do a better job upfront to make him feel comfortable again. I thought he made some progress in terms of sitting in the pocket, but I thought he got a little antsy again, kind of move in the pocket when he didn’t need to.”

Clemson looked out of sync for much of the game against the Wolfpack. The Tiger’s offense has only put together one successful drive, in the first half against the Wolfpack’s defense. On their second possession of the game, they were able to go 80 yards down the field in five plays for the score. On that drive, they had two large chunk plays of 29 and 32 yards to get the score. The 32-yard play was a catch made by Justyn Ross for the touchdown in the back endzone. Other than that, their offense looked completely out of sync to start the game. Five of their eight punts on the game came in the first half. And altogether seven of those drives were three and outs.

The Clemson offense had just ten first downs in the entire game. They converted just two of 11 on third downs for a success rate of 18 percent. And failed to complete their only fourth-down attempt. What really hurt was the offense’s inability to stay on the field. They lost the time of possession battle 18 minutes to 42. That resulted in another wide gap in the total plays ran by both teams. Clemson ran 49 offense plays, while NC State nearly doubled that with 96.

Elliott backs Uiagalelei

The last thing he closed out with was the mental of his quarterback, D.J Uiagalelei as he continued to take all the blame.

“That’s the type of young man that he is and he understands the magnitude of the position that he’s in,” Elliott said. “You get a lot of the credit, but you get a lot of the blame too. He’s been in a good spot. I haven’t seen any changes in his demeanor. I think he understands that. He knows that that’s the right thing to do, but it’s not all on his shoulders. There’s things that I can do better from a coaching staff standpoint; we can all do things better. You know each individual player can do things better. So it’s not all on him.

“He is the face, yes, so he gets the majority of the blame. He does have to improve some of the things he can control. But some of the things he is taking responsibility for are out of his control.”

In Saturday’s defeat, Uiagalelei wasn’t quite able to execute. The Clemson quarterback was 12 for 26 passing, completing less than 50 percent of his passing attempt. He did have two passing touchdowns, doubling his season total. Both touchdown grabs were by receiver Justyn Ross and it was the first time Uiagalelei had found any kind of rhythm with a receiver this year. Ross had 77 of Uiagalelei’s 111 passing yards.

In the same press conference, he put the team’s struggles on his poor play. Uiagalelei said his early struggles were “obstacles” that he would learn from and continue to keep trusting his process.

Elliott and the Clemson Tigers have another tough ACC test as they take on the Boston College Eagles this Saturday. The Eagles are off to a 4-0 after beating the Missouri Tigers in a shootout last Saturday.