CLEMSON — There is no better way to explain it. Clemson’s offensive attack last year was a train wreck.
Why?
The Tigers’ play-caller was not very good.
Maybe I am being too harsh. It was not all Garrett Riley’s fault.
Players did not always execute at a high level and there were injuries across the offensive line and at wide receiver that did not help, either.
However, as a coach, Riley failed to adjust to those issues. He instead stuck to the same game plan, or so it seemed, each week. And each week, especially when Clemson played a competent defense, the Tigers struggled.
Clemson averaged just under 400 yards (392.2) and barely over 27 points per game (27.2) in 2025. Those numbers were good enough for eighth and 11th respectively in the ACC.
It was supposed to be a variation of Mike Leach’s “Air Raid” offense, which was a pass-heavy spread offense. But that was not the case, as the Tigers struggled, especially in the run game.
Clemson averaged just 124.5 yards per game on the ground and 3.95 yards per carry.
Though the Tigers ran the football pretty well in Riley’s first two years running the offense, he developed a reputation of refusing to run the ball in obvious run situations or taking out the “hot back” for unexplainable reasons.
Why am I bringing this up?
Because I laughed today when I read what an opposing “anonymous” assistant coach in the ACC said about Chad Morris’ offense in Athlon Magazine’s 2026 College Football Preview.
“The same concepts they ran in 2025, you can go back to the beginning when Dabo [Swinney] got there and see the same thing. I don’t think it was Garrett Riley’s offense. It was essentially Chad Morris’ offense being called by Garrett Riley.”
The first mistake this “anonymous “coach made was say “you can go back to the beginning when Dabo got there and see the same thing.” That is incorrect.
Swinney ran more of a pro-style offense when he first took over at Clemson, which was run by former Florida head coach Billy Napier in 2009 and 2010.
I can’t say if some of the formations and concepts were the same or not without breaking down all the film from those seven years of Morris and Riley, but I can say with certainty, if Garrett Riley was calling Chad Morris’ offense, he did a horrible job with it.
But I know it was not Morris’ offense.
How?
Riley rarely threw the deep ball.
Morris’ offense is predicted by throwing the deep ball at least three times in a quarter, no matter what. That was evident by Clemson’s yards per attempt in the Morris’ era.
From 2011-’14, Clemson averaged 8.16 yards per attempt, including 8.78 in 2012 and 8.82 in 2013. When Riley was calling plays from 2023-’25, the Tigers averaged 6.97 yards per attempt, including 6.3 yards per attempt in 2023.
That alone tells me the concepts are not the same, and you can see why Swinney went back to what he knows worked and he brought back the guy who made it work.
Granted, Morris does not have Tajh Boyd, DeAndre Hopkins, Sammy Watkins and Dwayne Allen this time around, but Riley did have Cade Klubnik, Jake Briningstool, Bryant Wesco and T.J. Moore the last two years and the Tigers failed to average more than 7.5 yards per attempt.
Morris’ worst season was 7.53 yards per attempt in 2011, his first year.
Then there is the running game. Morris likes to run the football to set up the play-action passing game. None of his teams averaged less than 146.5 yards per game on the ground, including 191.1 yards per game in 2012.
In 2011, 2012 and 2013 Clemson averaged 4.2 yards per carry. The Tigers averaged just 3.5 yards per carry in 2014, but in Morris last five games that year, they averaged 175.2 yards per game and 4.4 yards per carry.
Showing Morris adjusted to his talent and the team improved during the course of the year. Also keep in mind the Tigers had a committee of running backs before Wayne Gallman finally took over at the end of the season.
Riley’s first two offenses at Clemson ran the football well. The Tigers averaged 174.3 and 173.4 yards per game. They also averaged 4.32 and 5.13 yards per carry.
However, Clemson’s run game took a nosedive at the end of the 2024 season after Phil Mafah was hurt. Riley completely abandoned the run game and truly did not give any other ball carrier an opportunity when it was obvious Mafah was injured.
Was that all Riley’s fault?
No, running backs coach C.J. Spiller can take some of the blame for not having a second back developed. But Riley did give up on the run game last year. I felt like he under utilized Adam Randall in the run game and in the offense, as a whole.
I will admit. I do not have high expectations for Clemson’s offense this coming season. However, if there is a guy that can do it, I do believe Chad Morris is the guy.
He has done it before, and he did it with his offense.
I am sorry, whoever said Garrett Riley was calling the same offense Clemson ran under Morris… Well, I do not know what he was seeing.