On the Gramlich & Mac Lain podcast, Clemson alums Kelly Gramlich and Eric Mac Lain previewed and broke down Saturday’s Clemson-Florida State matchup, focusing heavily on Clemson’s drastic offensive struggles and the quarterback situation.
Gramlich predicted a Florida State victory, highlighting a stark disparity between what the Tigers and Seminoles are capable of doing on the scoreboard.
Gramlich noted that while Florida State’s defense is suspect and has allowed a lot of points, FSU’s offense has still proven it can score against high-level opponents like Miami and Alabama. On the other hand, she pointed out that Clemson simply cannot score.
The Tigers currently rank 111th out of 138 FBS teams in scoring offense at 21.4 points per game, while the Seminoles are tied for 49th in that category, scoring 31.6 points per contest.
Coming off a bye week, Gramlich expects a Florida State team playing at home in Doak Campbell Stadium to have the edge, stating she’ll “really struggle to be convinced that Clemson can score with Florida State.”
“Florida State’s coming off a bye,” Gramlich said. “And they’re coming off a game that they lost, but they did a lot of really good things, especially on the offensive end. And when you look at these two teams, not to simplify it, but Florida State can score. And Clemson can’t. It’s a little bit similar to Virginia Tech and my concerns with that game because Virginia Tech’s defense has been suspect this year. So has Florida State’s. They’ve been giving up a lot of points, but they can score. Every game, it feels like they’ve been in most games because they can score with SMU, with Alabama, with Miami, with these good teams. They’ve still been able to put up points. I’m going to really struggle to be convinced that Clemson can score with Florida State, especially in Doak.”
“I don’t know, Mac, going to take Florida State,” Gramlich added. “I just don’t think Clemson can score… I know. I know. And it’s fine. I hate it as well.”
While Mac Lain couldn’t bring himself to openly pick against his alma mater, he expressed deep concerns about Clemson’s struggles on offense.
Mac Lain weighed in on the game plan for FSU, saying that if he were running the Seminoles’ defense, he would “copy and paste the game plan from Miami” — utilizing defensive line twists and stunts to disrupt Clemson’s weak protection.
“If I’m this FSU defense, specifically defensive line — copy and paste the game plan from Miami right here, do those stunts, do those twists and see if Clemson can do anything with it. See if they can protect it,” Mac Lain said. “I did think there was a little bit of improvement in the passing offense there from a protection standpoint against Virginia Tech. I thought Virginia Tech was going to tee off for six, seven, eight sacks. They got four, which is still a bunch. Had 13 tackles for loss. What do we see from that? Do we see improvement from that side of the ball that has literally — and again, this is not our opinion, this is a fact — the worst offense in college football.”
Regarding his concerns for the offense, Mac Lain noted “there’s a lot of just wrong page, different page that Clemson has to get on here.”
For instance, he wonders whether the Tigers might incorporate more quick-game concepts and if they can avoid miscommunications, such as freshman quarterback Tait Reynolds running unauthorized play-action calls.
“How do they figure it out? What do they look like again? Numbers are the numbers. I’m not making the numbers happen here. So do we see more quick game?” Mac Lain asked. “Do we see less reads, less play-actions, no play-actions? Do we see things of that nature? Which it’s funny. I went relatively off on the offensive staff calling that at the end of the game, because that’s what we see. I don’t have a headset on and I can’t hear the play call. We’ll come to find out. Tait just did that on his own, just ran a play-action play. It’s not a play-action play, and his coach has no clue why he did that.”
Mac Lain hopes to see Clemson reestablish the running game with sophomore running back Gideon Davidson, and he pleaded with the Tigers to get their wide receiver weapons more involved.
“I would love to see the reestablishment of Gideon Davidson running the freakin’ ball,” he said. “I mean, there was a two-and-a-half, three-week period there where he looked elite and looked like Clemson was going to take another step. So, interested to just see how that continues to evolve. My God, get these receivers involved. Please, like, get them the ball every way we can.”
Both hosts speculated on the quarterback situation, with backup Christopher Vizzina getting close to 100% health.
They discussed whether Vizzina might factor in if healthy, though Mac Lain thinks the offense could actually be worse if the less-mobile Vizzina is inserted behind the Tigers’ struggling offensive line.
“And then something interesting — I’m just going to say this to get it out there — I don’t think it’ll happen because of how Coach Swinney’s reacted, but if [Christopher] Vizzina is 100% percent, like, is he going back in the game? It’s going to be interesting. It’ll be interesting to see,” Mac Lain said.
“If this was a competition in camp and this is how the guy who lost the competition is performing, doesn’t the other guy deserve a chance to see if he can do any better? If this is the worst offense in the country,” Gramlich said.
“Maybe it’s way worse with [Vizzina] in there because he’s not as mobile,” Mac Lain added.
Kickoff of Saturday’s game between Clemson and Florida State is set for 7 p.m. on ACC Network. The Seminoles are a 6.5-point favorite.