CLEMSON — Depending on the metric, Clemson has one of, if not, the worst offense in college football.
The Tigers, who are coming off a heartbreaking loss to Virginia Tech on Saturday night, are averaging just 333.1 yards per game – 115th nationally. They are averaging 182.6 yards passing the football – 115th nationally. They are averaging just 21.4 points per game – 111th nationally.
You see where this is going.
They are bad, really bad.
Right now, Clemson is having its worse season on offense, since 2008, when those Tigers averaged 329.4 yards per game.
But when asked Sunday evening if they evaluated their offensive players wrong in the off-season, head coach Dabo Swinney pointed the blame elsewhere. He pointed his finger at himself and his offensive coaches.
“It is on us as coaches,” he said. “I think I have to be better. The coaches have to be better, as well, and it starts with me.”
Clemson (4-3, 2-2 ACC) struggled to 288 total yards against the Hokies, including just 153 yards through the air. The Tigers struggled in the red zone again. They struggled to protect their quarterback, their quarterback struggled to make reads.
It was not all on the quarterback. It is not on the offensive line. It is not on the wide receivers, the tight ends or the running backs.
“We have good players. We have good enough players,” Swinney said. “In my opinion, we should be 5-2 with momentum, but we did not get that done.
“That is my responsibility. We have good players that we have to coach and that we have to teach and we have to get them playing like we are supposed to.”
Swinney pointed to his special teams and defense this year as a way a team can improve and how he believes can still get there.
“Again, I am seeing that on defense. I am seeing that on special teams. I have seen a lot of great improvements in a lot of areas,” he said. “There have been some individuals here and there on offense.
“Even with Tait (Reynolds). We finally got to see how he can run. He is getting more and more comfortable there. But putting it all together, it just has not come, and we did not anticipate maybe the situation happing the way it did, either.”
That situation was Reynolds being thrown in as the starter when Christopher Vizzina went down with an elbow injury in Week 2.
“We have to be better as coaches, and we have to be better around him. He has definitely grown. He has definitely done some great things. We make a great throw, and we drop it on third down last night. What a throw that was.”
Clemson will see just how much it has improved or not when it visits Tallahassee, Fla., on Saturday.