Greg McElroy believes Clemson still has 'narrow' path to College Football Playoff

Eventually, a respectable, and perhaps top-tier, Clemson defense cracked in Atlanta. The Tigers gave up 28 second-half points to No. 1 Georgia, suffered a 34-3 loss in the season opener and then dropped to No. 25 in the AP Poll.

But there’s still hope for Dabo Swinney’s program, according to ESPN analyst Greg McElroy.

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“Clemson has a path to the playoff, but it’s really narrow,” McElroy said on his show, “Always College Football With Greg McElroy” Monday. “We’re going to react strongly to Clemson’s performance against Georgia, and we should. It was not a vintage Clemson performance by any stretch.”

McElroy pointed out how Clemson mounted just 188 yards of total offense in the 31-point defeat. Downfield passing remained an issue. Junior quarterback Cade Klubnik completed just 1-of-5 pass attempts traveling 20-plus air yards, according to Pro Football Focus.

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What’s more, running the football, which the Tigers found success with down the stretch of last season, wasn’t effective for Clemson, either.

“Now, how much of that had to do with Georgia? How much of that had to do with Clemson? I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t. I think a lot of it had to do with Georgia, but I do think some of it had to do with Clemson. Maybe they’re not who we thought they were.”

McElroy acknowledged the headlines that have been swirling around Clemson the last few days, the ones that have harped on Swinney’s reluctance to lean into the transfer portal movement. McElroy didn’t necessarily contest those headlines, or the stories they’re attached to, but he took a step back and provided a big-picture takeaway about the Tigers’ current situation.

The bottom line is, Clemson just needs to win a winnable ACC to make the 12-team College Football Playoff, McElroy said. And he explained that, outside of a dominant performance from Miami, there wasn’t really another outing from a preseason ACC title contender that turned heads — for the right reasons, that is.

McElroy touched on the fact that Florida State, North Carolina State and Virginia Tech all underwhelmed, albeit in varying degrees.

“So all that being said, Clemson is very much alive to make a run this year,” McElroy said. “Now, here’s the problem: Can they win a national championship right now? I don’t know if I’d go that far. I personally don’t think they can beat teams like Georgia, Ohio State and Penn State in three consecutive weeks. I don’t think I would choose them to win against any of those three teams.

“But I do know the way they play defense, they’re going to be really good along the defensive line. Saw that. They ran out of gas in the second half of last week’s game, but they’re going to be really good along the defensive line. I love their linebackers. I think their secondary did a great job in coverage for the first three quarters of the game. But their offense has to give them something.”

McElroy expects more from second-year Clemson offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, who engineered a top-10 scoring offense at TCU in 2022 with Heisman Trophy finalist Max Duggan during the Horned Frogs national runner-up season. That year, TCU was tied for fourth nationally with 91 plays of 20-plus yards from scrimmage.

Last year, Clemson was tied for 98th with 46 of those plays. The Tigers had just one of them last weekend against Georgia.

“They have to be able to push the ball down the field,” McElroy said. “They have to be more aggressive when it comes to throwing the ball, because if you look at the air yards per attempt last year, Cade Klubnik was in the 120s.

“They have to take those chances. They have to take those risks. And while I don’t know if their receivers are as good as they once were, they’re plenty good enough to manufacture big plays, especially when you have a back like Phil Mafah that’s going to be very difficult to bring down for most of the teams they’re going to face this year.”

McElroy reiterated: “So Clemson still has a path to the playoff, but it is narrow.”