By Will Vandervort.
Through two games of the 2014 season, 23rd-ranked Clemson is averaging 178.0 yards per game on the ground. It’s not a great number, but it isn’t bad either.
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney says it has been effective. However, the Tigers, who will play Florida State next week in Tallahassee, Fla., have yet to have that game-changing type play in the running game that offensive coordinator Chad Morris was hoping to see a lot of this year.
So far the Tigers (1-1) have had only two runs over 20 yards and both came in the second half in last week’s blowout win over S.C. State. D.J. Howard had a 20-yard game in the third quarter and Kurt Fleming broke off a 30-yard run in the fourth quarter.
Against Georgia, Clemson’s running backs had no run longer than 14 yards, and that came in the third quarter. In fact, Davidson was the only running back to have a carry over 10 yards in that game.
“As long as we do all the small things right, it will lead to the big plays and the stuff we are expecting of ourselves as a unit,” said freshman Adam Choice.
Choice and fellow freshman Wayne Gallman could be the difference for the Tigers in the weeks to come. Against S.C. State, Gallman rushed for a game-high 77 yards with a long run of 16 yards, while Choice had 74 rushing yards, including an 18-yard scamper.
“We work at running the ball every day,” Choice said. “We have been working at it as much as we have the passing game. We are just trying to be a complete offense.”
Swinney admitted the Tigers came out in the second half against S.C. State with the intent of throwing the football. It was a deliberate approach because there were a few things they wanted to see from their quarterbacks – Cole Stoudt and Deshaun Watson.
“It is a mixture of things. I thought we did well,” Swinney said. “We wanted to throw the ball quite a bit. We came out at the start of the second half and we wanted to throw every snap and we threw it every snap except for the last play – a draw play that we scored on third down.”
Swinney might not have felt the need to run as much against S.C. State because he liked what his team did at Georgia when it was running the football. Though Clemson had zero yards in the second half from the running game, most of that was due to four second-half sacks and poor field position. Because of the bad field position, and Morris’ conservative play calling, Georgia was able to focus a little more on stopping the run on first and second down.
On designed running plays, Clemson gained 142 yards against Georgia—that includes quarterback draws and option keepers. The Tigers averaged 3.7 yards per carry. Again, not great numbers, but not bad either.
A week later, even though the coaching staff was focused on improving the passing game, Clemson ran for 295 yards on true running plays – an average of 5.8 yards per carry.
“We really wanted to throw the ball and see where we were (in the passing game),” Swinney said. “The things that we did in the running game, we did what we needed to do.”
“We ran the ball very effectively.”
The key now is to find a little explosiveness in the running game to go with the effectiveness. It’s not that running game is bad at Clemson it’s just not where the Tigers want it or need it to be for this offense to really be special.
“We were efficient. I don’t think we were great early, but I think we got better as the day went,” Swinney said. “As the game moved on, we were able to run the ball the way we need to and the way I like to see us do it.”