College Football News Preview 2020: Previewing, predicting, and looking ahead to the Clemson Tigers season with what you need to know.
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– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Top Players | Key Players, Games, Stats
– What Will Happen, Win Total Prediction
– Schedule Analysis
– Clemson Previews 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015
2019 Record: 14-1 overall, 8-0 in ACC
Head Coach: Dabo Swinney, 13th year: 130-31
2019 CFN Final Opinion Ranking: 2
2019 CFN Final Season Formula Ranking: 3
2019 CFN Preview Ranking: 2
No one knows what’s going to happen to the 2020 college football season. We’ll take a general look at where each team stands – doing it without spring ball to go by – while crossing our fingers that we’ll all have some well-deserved fun this fall. Hoping you and yours are safe and healthy.
5. College Football News Preview 2020: Clemson Tigers Offense 3 Things To Know
– The offense isn’t going to stop just because former co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott left for the USF head coaching gig. Tony Elliott has been in the OC mix for the Tigers since 2015, and now the job is all his.
Breathtaking, the offense was a juggernaut again as the team barely missed matching the record-setting 664-point run in 2018 with 659 last year, scoring more than 50 points seven times before the CFP with a run of 45 or more in seven of the final eight regular season games.
And here we go again, mostly because of the two future NFL franchise stars in the backfield.
Trevor Lawrence continues to put together an all-timer of a college career, hitting 66% of his passes for 3,665 yards and 36 touchdowns with eight picks, and adding 563 rushing yards – hitting Ohio State for 107 yards – with nine touchdowns.
Lawrence is obviously a special talent, but so is the next elite superstar DJ Uiagalelei, a jaw-dropping pro prospect from California who blew off Oregon and the rest of the Pac-12 to take over whenever Mr. Lawrence is done. However, with Chase Brice transferring to Duke, and with a year in the system, 2019 great recruit Taisun Phommachanh might be the No. 2 guy early on.
CFN in 60 Video: Clemson Tigers Preview
– Of all years to have left early for the NFL to get paid, this would’ve been it. But Travis Etienne is back after three years of somehow being among the most underappreciated stars in college football.
Trevor Lawrence is the star, Dabo Swinney is the superstar, and the program has taken on a life of its own among the elite of the elite, and all Etienne has done is run for 4,038 yards and 56 touchdowns, catch 54 passes for 567 yards and six scores, and average 7.8 yards per carry. He’s 4.3 fast, tough, ultra-productive, and the type of back who could carry the offense, even though he doesn’t have to.
No. 2 back Lyn-J Dixon is back after running for 635 yards and six scores, and Chez Mellusi and Michael Dukes are back again to work into the mix. As if this group wasn’t deep enough, in comes five-star talent Demarkcus Bowman. Now they all need guys to block for them.
The offensive line has become a bit of a factory at Clemson. It doesn’t crank out a slew of next-level talents, but it has been a dominant force throughout the run in the CFP era. Now it has to replace four starters with only Carman Jackson back, likely at left tackle.
All of the backups from the end of last year return, and they’ll move up in the rotation. The most talented reserve of the bunch might be new-recruit Walker Parks, but he needs time to bulk up.
– The receiving corps took a massive hit with the loss of Tee Higgins to the Cincinnati Bengals, and with Justyn Ross out for the season after needing surgery to fix an issue with his spine. There’s no reason to worry – most college teams can only dream of having a trio of Amari Rodgers, Joseph Ngata, and Frank Ladson to work a passing game around. Four-star recruit EJ Williams would be an instant No. 1 target at most places.
NEXT: College Football News Preview 2020: Clemson Tigers Defense 3 Things To Know
4. College Football News Preview 2020: Clemson Tigers Defense 3 Things To Know
– Somehow, Brent Venables is still the Clemson defensive coordinator and not the head coach somewhere else, and once again he’ll help put together a dominant defense after the team led the ACC – and was sixth in the nation in total D, was third in the country in scoring defense, and allowed fewer than 17 points to everyone but North Carolina (20), Ohio State (23) and LSU (42).
Gone is leading tackler Isaiah Simmons – the best linebacker in the nation last year – to the Arizona Cardinals. Four of the top five tacklers are done, star corner AJ Terrell is gone, and so is safety K’Von Wallace. There’s more than enough talent is in place around the five returning starters, beginning with a defensive front that had few problems reloading after losing the epic 2018 front four.
Former star recruit DE Xavier Kelly is leaving for Arkansas, but that’s partly because the line is just that deep. Xavier Thomas is overdue to blossom into stardom on one side, and Justin Foster is already and All-ACC-caliber talent on the other.
If Tyler Davis and Nyles Pinkney aren’t the nation’s best defensive tackle tandem, they’re in the team photo. On the way are super-recruits Bryan Bresee and DeMonte Capehart for the interior and Myles Murphy for the outside – the cupboard is fully stocked.
– There’s no replacing Isaiah Simmons in the linebacking corps, but senior James Skalski is back after finishing second on the team with 90 stops as a dependable all-around tackler on the inside. He’ll own the inside, but now the outside parts have to fill in for Simmons and third-leading tackler Chad Smith.
Junior Baylon Spector is a 230-pound hitter who came up with his share of plays in the rotation, but getting sophomores Mike Jones and Jake Venables to take over for Simmons will be an issue.
– Three starters in the secondary are off to the NFL. The Las Vegas Raiders took AJ Terrell in the first round, and then took safety Tanner Muse in the third. Fellow safety K’Von Wallace went to the Eagles in the fourth, and now corner Derion Kendrick is all that’s left – but he’s a good one.
Senior Nolan Turner will find a safety job after making 48 stops last year, but the other two spots will be a fight through fall camp. Junior Mario Goodrich was a big-time corner recruit in 2018, but he’s been sparingly used so far.
NEXT: College Football News Preview 2020: Top Clemson Tigers Players
College Football News Preview 2020: Top Clemson Tigers Players
Best Clemson Tigers Offensive Player
QB Trevor Lawrence, Jr.
The guy would’ve been the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NFL draft, and he’d be a Cincinnati Bengal right now if he was able to leave early for the 2020 NFL draft.
All the next-level tools are there in a 6-6, 220-pound frame, along with the NFL franchise quarterback mindset and temperament. Best of all, he showed last year he can adjust.
He was pressing early last season. He was coming off the national championship-winning freshman season, and it was almost like he was trying to prove he really was that good with every throw. There were too many forced passes, a little bit of hero ball, and he threw five interceptions and five touchdown passes in the first three games, and eight picks in the first seven.
Over the eight games he seemed to relax, take the plays that were there, and he threw 24 touchdown passes and no interceptions.
And next year he’ll be the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL draft.
2. RB Travis Etienne, Sr.
3. OT Jackson Carman, Jr.
4. WR Amari Rodgers, Sr.
5. WR Joseph Ngata, Soph.
Best Clemson Tigers Defensive Player
DT Tyler Davis, Soph.
The 6-2, 295-pounder was a decent recruit in the 2019 class, but he rose up as exactly the type of star the team needed last year after all the next-level talent lost on the defensive front. He might not be huge, but he’s quick off the ball, active, and tough enough to come up with 44 tackles with 6.5 sacks and ten tackles for loss.
2. CB Derion Kendrick, Jr.
3. DT Nyles Pinckney, Sr.
4. DE Xavier Thomas, Jr.
5. DE Justin Foster, Sr.
LB James Skalski, Sr.
NEXT: College Football News Preview 2020: Clemson Tigers Keys To The Season
College Football News Preview 2020: Clemson Tigers Keys To The Season
Biggest Key To The Clemson Tigers Offense
Once again, the offensive line has to come together right away. It’s easy to write off any team – or knock it down a peg – that loses the top offensive linemen. But out of all the great things Clemson has been able to do under Dabo Swinney, filling in the gaps up front – on both sides – without missing a beat might be among the most impressive.
All of the top teams can find skill guys, and coming up with good defensive players isn’t usually an issue if the scheme is right, but rebuilding or reloading a line is much, much harder than Clemson makes it look. It helps to have an O line coach like Robbie Caldwell has been around the coaching block for over 40 years.
Ask Florida State, Texas and Tennessee how easy it is to find five guys year after year after year who can consistently block well.
Chip Kelly still hasn’t come close to fixing his front five at UCLA.
Just one starter returns to a line that finished 11th in the nation in sacks allowed and paved the way for over 240 yards per game. While the assumption is that all will be fine with the world – again, it always is at Clemson – one of the team’s worst rushing performance last year was 125 yards, and that was in the way-too-close win over North Carolina.
LSU, Ohio State and Texas A&M all held the Tigers to 160 yards or fewer, and they were the only ones other than the Tar Heels to keep Clemson from going off.
As long as the four new starters up front are good, and as long as the NFL skill guys have time to operate, nothing stops.
Biggest Key To The Clemson Tigers Defense
Just keep forcing mistakes. It’s not so much that Clemson needs to have takeaways to succeed, but when it gets them, the party is usually over – and ugly.
43 in a row.
Clemson has won almost everything – and you can find a stat to skew almost any way you want with this program over the last few years – but ever since losing to Georgia Tech 28-6 late in the 2014 season, it’s a ridiculous 43-0 when it comes up with two or more takeaways.
How much do forced turnovers matter? Over the last five years, Clemson lost the 2015 national title to Alabama – no takeaways.
It only came up with one in the wild shootout loss to Pitt in 2016, and didn’t get any in the amazing comeback win over Bama for the national title.
It got just one in the 2016 loss to Syracuse and one in the CFP loss to Bama, and the next year it only came up with one in the close call against the Orange.
And last season? There were just two games when Clemson didn’t generate a takeaway. Once was in the 21-20 win over North Carolina, and the other was in the national championship loss to LSU.
Key Clemson Tigers Player To A Successful Season
CB Mario Goodrich, Jr.
Go ahead and put several offensive linemen in this category, and a case could be made that WR Amari Rodgers has to take his game to a whole other level with Justyn Ross out and Tee Higgins gone, but the secondary is – and it’s all relative here compared to most teams – one of the thinnest areas going into the season.
Darion Kendrick is an all-star on one side, and teams are going to test Goodrich early on the other. The former star recruit has been am all-star in the classroom, but he has yet to become more than an occasionally-used backup. Now he’ll get his shot.
Key Game To The Clemson Tigers Season
at Notre Dame, Nov. 7
There might be a blip.
There might be a game like the North Carolina thriller of last year – a 21-20 Tiger win – that goes the other way, or there could be a Syracuse-like showdown in 2018 that they can’t pull out, or there could certainly be a loss on the wrong day at Florida State, against Virginia, or against (gasp!) South Carolina.
Yes, there could certainly be a huge upset at some point, but it would take something special for one loss to happen in one of those games, much less two. Beating Notre Dame in South Bend would be a wonderful insurance policy.
That’s the one game that might be close to even – or as close as it could get for this Clemson team. Lose, and when it comes to getting into the College Football Playoff, there’s no margin for error whatsoever in the other 11 games.
– Clemson Tigers Schedule Breakdown & Analysis
2019 Clemson Fun Stats
– 1st Half Scoring: Clemson 398 – Opponents 93
– Sacks: Clemson 47 for 313 yards – Opponents 18 for 142 yards
– Red Zone TDs: Clemson 51-of-67 (76%) – Opponents 14-of-33 (42%)
NEXT: College Football News Preview 2020: Clemson Tigers Win Total Prediction, What Will Happen
1. College Football News Preview 2020: Clemson Tigers Win Total Prediction, What Will Happen
CFN in 60 Video: Clemson Tigers Preview
From the scary career-threatening surgery that star WR Justyn Ross had to undergo, to the allegations made against assistant Danny Pearman, to the glaring spotlight on Dabo Swinney during this tumultuous time as he runs one of the nation’s premier programs, it’s been an – let’s just say – interesting offseason at Clemson.
Oh yeah, and this might still be the best team in college football.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really, really helps to play in the ACC and not the SEC or Big Ten, but the program has lost a grand total of two regular season games in the last five years, and both – the 43-42 firefight with Pitt in 2016, and the Kelly-Bryant-got-hurt game at Syracuse in 2017 – were by four points.
Five straight ACC titles – the last three in total laughers – five straight College Football Playoffs, four national championship appearances, two national titles, and it has all become almost routine.
The team lost one of the greatest defensive front fours in college football history, and in some ways it was even better on that side of the ball.
The team lost six players to the 2019 NFL Draft, and everything kept on rolling. It just lost seven to the 2020 draft – not to mention Ross – and it’s still either the No. 1 team in the country, or close to it.
Having a backfield of Trevor Lawrence and Travis Etienne is just the start. Now the defensive line is experienced – to go along with all of last year’s production – and the talent level and coaching remain as high as any in the country.
How good is this team? Lawrence is the almost-certain No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, and new recruit DJ Uiagalelei might be an even better prospect. You can do that at running back, too, and we’re about to see the talent rise up at receiver with Ross gone.
Set The Clemson Tigers Regular Season Win Total At … 11
Bet at BetMGM Win Total Line: 11.5
But don’t take anything for granted. That’s the brilliance of a Clemson, and an Ohio State, and an Alabama, and an Oklahoma – they all make it seem normal that they’re right there each and every season.
The ACC is better, but Clemson will be a double-digit favorite in every game but – maybe – the trip to Notre Dame. That’s not to say that Virginia or Louisville couldn’t do something funky in Death Valley, and going to Florida State might not be a breeze, and South Carolina will someday pull off a win in this series again.
Figure on one hiccup somewhere, but again, that’s what makes this program what it is. It might lose one game, but it’s not losing twice.
– What You Need To Know: Offense | Defense
– Top Players | Key Players, Games, Stats
– Schedule Analysis
