Joel Klatt confused by Clemson’s Week 2 offensive turnaround: ‘Which one is it?'

Clemson could not have looked more opposite, especially offensively, over their first two weeks of the season. That eventually begs the question of which version of the Tigers is the real one?

Joel Klatt pondered that during the episode of his show on Wednesday. The offensive outburst for Clemson in the 66-20 win against Appalachian State in comparison to their 34-3 loss against Georgia in the opener made him even second guess what he was seeing, regardless of the perceived difference of competition between the two opponents.

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“Clemson fans have got to be thinking to themselves, like, ‘Um, what?'” Klatt laughed. “To be honest, I’m scrolling around, I’m watching games on the plane, I’m getting updates on my phone on Saturday. In my mind, I’m like this can’t be right. Like, there’s a glitch, right? You mean to tell me that the team that did nothing offensively against Georgia is just smoking App State? Like, smoking App State.”

“Three points and 188 total yards against Georgia. That’s it,” Klatt said. “Now, maybe you could say, ‘Well, Joel, Georgia is elite’. Fine. Fair enough. App State was receiving votes. Which means that they’re one of the, what, best 30, 31, 32, 33 teams in the country? 66 points, 712 yards against App State. That’s unreal.”

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Clemson mustered just the field goal while totaling just the 188 yards, including an interception in the pass game and just two yards a carry in the rush attack, against the Bulldogs. Then, a week later, they scored 66, with touchdowns on all eight of their drives in the first half, off of 712 yards for one of the best eruptions in school history.

Cade Klubnik certainly had his best collegiate performance as part of that. He went 24-26 (92.3%) overall for 378 passing yards, seven total scores, and no turnovers in the 46-point win.

That poses the thought of which Clemson offense is real? Or if it is somewhere in the middle?

Well, to Klatt, it might actually be closer to the one that they saw on Saturday against the Mountaineers.

“So which one is it?,” Klatt asked. “Clemson fans – let’s check in. Which one is it?”

“You know what? Cautiously, I’m optimistic,” said Klatt.

That’s because Klatt has been high on the Tigers on that side of the ball since the hire of Garrett Riley last offseason. It just might have taken a season longer than he thought for that to work out like he thought that it would.

“For the first time since last year, I can honestly say that this is kind of what I wanted to start to see last season when Garrett Riley became your offensive coordinator,” said Klatt. “I remember this because, in hindsight, it was probably the prediction that I was most off on before last season in 2023. This idea that Garrett Riley, coming from TCU after that national championship run with Max Duggan and going to Clemson, was going to improve Cade Klubnik and the offense, which had become very stagnant at Clemson. That was the thought. I thought to myself, you know what? I trust it, I think that Garrett is really good, I think Cade is talented, and I think this is going to work. Thought, you know what, Clemson is going to win the ACC. Then it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen at all.”

“Maybe I was just a year early, maybe I was just a year early. Maybe we’re just starting to see this come to fruition,” Klatt said. “This is what I thought 15 games ago. Maybe it just took 15 games in order for them to develop and really learn the system.”

Clemson obviously has to do it or something similar again before anyone believes that one game could now be who they are on offense. With that said, it was a much better showing nonetheless that could be what gets people to believe in the Tigers again to Klatt.

“The fanbase? I would frame, as we check in here – I would frame this as maybe this is a moment where Klubnik, Garrett Riley, and the offense start to turn the corner, okay,” Klatt opined. “You don’t have to face Georgia every week. In fact, you can get better and, you know what, maybe down the road, you’re going to get another chance at Georgia. Maybe down the road, you’re going to get a chance at Miami in the ACC Championship.”

“We wrote Clemson off because of the fashion in which that they lost to Georgia. I’m here to reel you back in and say lets check in here. Because, Clemson? Maybe you’re starting to turn the corner here offensively. Maybe that was a sign of things to come.”