On his Always College Football show, ESPN analyst Greg McElroy was joined by fellow college football analyst Danny Kanell to discuss a number of different topics coming out of Week 1 – including what happened with Clemson in its 17-10 loss to LSU.

McElroy asked Kanell, the former Florida State quarterback, if LSU is that good – or if last Saturday’s outcome was more about Clemson’s inability to move the ball on the ground and create opportunities through the air.

“That was the biggest concern for me after that one,” Kanell said. “Going into the game, I was actually curious, because you hear about the defensive linemen that are – Peter Woods, T.J. Parker – they’re supposed to first-round picks, and their defense, with [defensive coordinator] Tom Allen, is supposed to be this great defense. But in the back of my mind, I’m like, they still were second to last in rushing [defense] in the ACC last year. Like, they still did not perform very well. But the defense actually did.

“And then there was one issue that I was wondering about. Because they’ve been a program that has relied on sort of featured backs – Phil Mafah, Will Shipley, [Travis] Etienne before that. They’ve always had kind of a guy to go to, and they turned to somebody who they converted from wide receiver in Adam Randall. In the back of my mind – I don’t know about the receivers you ever played with – but they like to run in space a little bit more than like cramming it up off tackle or running something inside. And not to say that can’t work out, but that was concerning for me.”

Clemson, of course, rushed for just 31 yards on 20 carries against LSU. Randall was Clemson’s leading rusher with 16 yards and a touchdown on five carries.

Kanell added that Clemson quarterback Cade Klubnik’s performance was also “concerning.”

Klubnik — the preseason ACC Player of the Year, a preseason first-team All-American, and a Heisman Trophy favorite entering this season – went 19-of-38 passing for 230 yards and an interception.

“The two things that were concerning for me, is I felt there were a couple of quarterbacks coming into the season – [LSU quarterback] Garrett Nussmeier would have been one of them, [Penn State quarterback] Drew Allar is another one – but Cade Klubnik, I would have said, on that stage, he would’ve played and been a star on the field, and he looked kind of like the version that we saw against Georgia [in last year’s season opener] where it wasn’t as bad statistically and he didn’t have the horrible mistake, but he just didn’t look confident,” Kanell said.

“And as your leader of your team, somebody’s who’s been predicted to be first-team All-ACC, I thought that was concerning. But he could play his way out of it. Like, I’m not that worried about him.”

Despite the season-opening loss, Kanell believes Clemson can still go on to make the 12-team College Football Playoff.

As for whether Clemson can win its first national title since 2018? Kanell isn’t so sure about that.

“The schedule is very manageable, but I do wonder — I still think they’re a playoff team, I don’t know if they’re a national championship team just yet,” he said. “They’ve got a long way to go to prove that.”