You can sense the palpable fog of anxiety that has fallen upon Memorial Stadium as the down marker, 1 yard behind the original line of scrimmage, ticks to third down.

The only fans making any noise are the ones in black and gold who made the trip from the mountains of North Carolina.

The game is only a minute old, but it feels like a long night is on tap for the Clemson offense after starting with a 2-yard loss on a swing pass and a 1-yard run by Phil Mafah.

If you can freeze time and tell anyone in Orange and White with the clairvoyant information that Appalachian State will gain 363 yards as part of 24 first downs and score 20 points, there is a sizeable contingent whose fears of an upset will only grow.

Tell them that backup quarterback Christopher Vizzina will take the first snap of the second half, and some may consider heading for the exit.

Such is an encapsulation of the fans’ lack of confidence in Clemson’s offense, not just after the 3-point output in the first game against №1 Georgia but after how the unit looked for much of the 2023 season — Cade Klubnik’s first as the Tigers’ starting quarterback and Garrett Riley’s first as the offensive coordinator.

If you had to draw up the one play that could have flipped the mood of Memorial Stadium into elation, it would have been a 76-yard touchdown pass, preferably to one of the true freshmen receivers who had provided so much cautious optimism since they stepped on campus but who had been neither seen nor heard against Georgia. One of those receivers — Bryant Wesco— drew the loudest cheers during the pregame announcement of the starting lineups.

And wouldn’t you know it? Klubnik dropped into a clean pocket on that third down and hit a streaking Wesco running behind the Mountaineer defense in stride for a 76-yard touchdown to send the stadium in disbelieving delirium.

Not only was it Klubnik’s longest completion of his young career, it was Clemson’s longest completion since 2020. For a program that built its rise on explosive plays, particularly in the passing game, it was a literal blast from the past as the Clemson cannon punctuated the explosive play.

It was also the confidence-boosting platform Klubnik had sorely needed. One drive later, he noticed Wesco was in single coverage with the defensive back right up on the line of scrimmage, and again stood in a clean pocket while the freshman from Texas beat his man off the line before delivering a 51-yard strike down to the Mountaineer 2-yardline. Klubnik scored on the next play.

All eight first-half drives for Clemson ended with cannonfire, Tiger Band playing and an ever-increasing amount of catharsis. Klubnik completed his first 13 passes, only missed on one throw which was a low-percentage fade on 1st-and-goal and wrapped up his night with 24-of-26 passing for 378 yards and five touchdowns with two more scores with his legs. Four of his touchdowns were 29 yards or longer, which matches his season total of touchdown passes of that length from his sophomore campaign, and better still: all of the throws were on time and hit his receiver in stride. In fact, his second touchdown appeared to hit Jake Briningstool the exact moment he looked up for the ball. It shouldn’t be discounted how much of a role the offensive line led by new position coach Matt Luke played in Klubnik’s comfort level; App State didn’t register a sack in the entire game and Klubnik was rarely bothered by pass rushers.

Even Mafah got in on the explosive plays with an 83-yard dash through the Mountaineer defense. The three plays of 50-plus yards exceeded the total of similar plays the Tigers had in all of 2023 season (2).

As such, Vizzina’s snap to start the second half wasn’t to bail Klubnik out as it was to give him an early night to bask in his performance. The 20 points and offensive success enjoyed by App State would come almost entirely against the second-string Tiger defense.

It’s often said that when smaller schools come to town, it’s a no-win situation for the bigger schools. No matter how strong the smaller school appears to be, your options are to win (which only shows you did what you were supposed to do) or lose (which brings public shame).

This column argued a week ago that this Clemson team doing what it was supposed to do shouldn’t be dismissed, given how much it needed a positive performance to show it could play to its potential.

After the 66–20 victory on Saturday night and especially with the way the offense showed its fans, it was indeed capable of the high-powered performance they had been begging to see for so long, you couldn’t have found many Clemson fans who considered the game a no-win scenario.

Yes, sterner tests await, especially in the next home game when a bruised N.C. State team will try to get right after its own disappointing performance against a top SEC school.

But all Clemson could do in its home opener is beat App State and the manner in which the Tigers beat the Mountaineers should only reinforce the level of confidence they gained from the win.

Basketball players talk about how much better they feel once they see the ball go through the hoop. You can only imagine how much better the Tigers feel after seeing it happen nine times on Saturday.

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Robbie Tinsley is an award-winning columnist from his time as the sports editor of The Journal in Seneca, S.C. He now works on a freelance basis from his new home in Greer. He can be reached either via Twitter @RTinMan13 or email at robtinsley13@gmail.com.

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This column also appeared in the Saturday, Sept. 14th edition of The (Seneca) Journal.

Catharsis and cannonfire was originally published in Roar May Echo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The winners of two out of the last three national championships are opening their season as the preseason №1 team in a showcase game against their rivals from the next state over.

For Clemson, you could almost call it déjà vu — but with one rather large caveat.

The Tigers aren’t the subject of the first sentence like they were in 2019. Instead, Dabo Swinney’s team is playing the role of the decided underdogs like Georgia Tech was in that Thursday night game in Memorial Stadium five years ago.

And it’s the Georgia Bulldogs who they will be trying to knock off the sport’s highest perch.

The last time Georgia lost a regular season game, D.J. Uiagalelei was Clemson’s starting quarterback. That might not sound like all too long ago until you include the fact Uiagalelei was filling in for the COVID-positive Trevor Lawrence in a game at Notre Dame in November of 2020. Part of that game was pre-empted by Joe Biden’s acceptance speech that he had won the 2020 presidential election.

Nearly one entire presidential term later, the Bulldogs have won the same number of national titles (2) as they have lost games of any variety since — both coming in the SEC Championship to Alabama, first in 2021 and then last year in 2023.

If Clemson is looking for a positive omen, both losses came in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, and the same stadium can nominally be called the neutral site for the season-opening clash, although there will likely be a super-majority of people in attendance who are oblivious to the fact that barking at other humans is a bit weird.

Unlike the Bulldogs, Clemson’s history since November 2020 has been far more checkered as they were bounced from the College Football Playoff viciously by Ohio State before three straight seasons with three losses or more.

That night in South Bend, the Tigers thought they had two generational quarterbacks on the roster as the freshman Uiagalelei threw for 439 yards in Lawrence’s stead and was far from the reason the Tigers fell in double overtime. Instead, they are still looking for their first true replacement for Lawrence after Uiagalelei faltered as a full-time starter and gave way to Cade Klubnik, who endured a rocky sophomore season under center for the Tigers.

Now a junior, Klubnik will be hoping to parlay his performance down the stretch for the Tigers last year, especially in the fourth-quarter comeback win over Kentucky in the Gator Bowl, into a more successful 2024. As a high school superstar in Texas who won three state titles at Westlake High School, Klubnik faced little adversity, and there were a number of times during the 2023 season where it was clear he was trying to channel the same spirit of being able to do everything while facing much stronger competition.

Often working against him were two critical elements of successful quarterbacking: the guys catching the ball and the guys blocking for him. Clemson has hopes that both elements have been addressed in 2024 — the receiving corps appears to be healthy and has added two high-powered freshmen in Bryant Wesco and T.J. Moore, while the offensive line has a new highly regarded coach in Matt Luke, who was last on staff with Georgia for both of its national titles before stepping away for a one-year retirement.

In a more common college football schedule, Clemson would have one or two warm-up games to gel the offense around second-year coordinator Garrett Riley, but instead, the Tigers face perhaps the sport’s stoutest test in Kirby Smart’s Bulldog defense. And that’s not to slight the Red and Black’s offensive prowess, powered by returning starter Carson Beck at quarterback.

Even in the days of the four-team College Football Playoff, neither team could call this a must-win, and it’s especially true in the first season of the 12-team playoff.

But for Clemson, there are high stakes at play that don’t necessarily correlate to a jubilant bus ride back up I-85 on Saturday afternoon.

Five years ago, the Tigers were in the business of showing what teams don’t belong on the same field as college football’s elite. Georgia Tech rolled into the 2019 opener with a new coach in Geoff Collins who was out to prove he could win with the Yellow Jackets. He had players lifting weights on the field of Memorial Stadium before the game to showcase how well prepared they were for the moment.

Clemson won 52–14. Collins went 25–38 at Georgia Tech before being fired after the 2022 season.

Now, the 14th-ranked Tigers must find a way to prove they belong among those elite teams again. They don’t have to bridge as big of a gap as Georgia Tech did that day, but there’s a gap, nevertheless. The Vegas oddsmakers give Georgia a 12.5-point advantage as of the time of writing, and it’s the first time Clemson has been more than a touchdown underdog for a game since 2014 — predating all of its College Football Playoff appearances.

A mean machine in Red and Black is coming down the Clemson’s proverbial track.

How much the Tigers can meet that attack — even if they cannot ultimately derail the Dawgs — will be emblematic of the team’s readiness to run with the sport’s top dogs again.

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Robbie Tinsley is an award-winning columnist from his time as the sports editor of The Journal in Seneca, S.C. He now works on a freelance basis from his new home in Greer. He can be reached either via Twitter @RTinMan13 or email at robtinsley13@gmail.com.

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This column also appeared in the Saturday, Aug. 31st edition of The (Seneca) Journal.

No longer top dogs was originally published in Roar May Echo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The cruelty of football is in its timing.

You suffer through the longest offseason in sports, aching for that glorious return to action. You wish away perfectly lovely summer evenings thinking about your team in nothing but positives, because as time gets further and further away from the last time you saw them on the field, you forget what happens when things go wrong.

And on Monday night, boy how they went wrong for the Clemson Tigers.

It’s frankly impossible to devise a more infuriating way to lose a football game, even down to the fact it was the first game. While new offensive coordinator Garrett Riley’s playcalling looked much improved in the second half, all of the elements of the offense that were a problem at the end of last season were present — a quarterback who never looked settled in the pocket, a receiving corps that observed the buddy system with opposing DBs and a widespread case of fumbleitis.

In his two starts as a college quarterback, Cade Klubnik has led the Clemson offense into opposition territory on 19 of 27 drives. The results of those 19 drives? Four scoring drives (two touchdowns and two field goals), five missed field goals, one failed fake field goal as part of five turnover on downs, four turnovers, two times where the half ended and a punt.

The series of drives to start the second half on Monday will have been the hardest to rewatch in the film room. On the first three drives of the half coming after Duke took the lead 14–6, Clemson were inside the 10-yardline all three times, and twice reached the 1. Those drives ended blocked field goal, fumble on a quarterback-running back exchange and goal-line fumble.

If the Tigers were to get into the end zone on one of those drives, you feel like Dabo Swinney’s team ultimately would’ve found a way to win and had the next two weeks to iron out the wrinkles before the arrival of prime challenger, Florida State. Instead, the defense which had shown its own issues but had rebounded up until the last fumble crumbled, and the result deteriorated into an eye-popping 28–7 defeat. Now, there is a massive spotlight on the program with all the speculation over how quickly and how steeply the fall will be.

Now a new kind of waiting has set in — dread. If the summer felt long, then the wait between games will be interminable. And now the visit of the Seminoles who looked so dominant in dismantling №5 LSU on Sunday night looms in all the worst ways. For the first time, Clemson will not just be an underdog stepping into its own stadium, but a decided one. The chief concern might not be the implications on the College Football Playoff or even the ACC Championship; it might be on not embarrassing themselves.

In the meantime, the Tigers must find a way to regain both form and confidence against Charleston Southern and Florida Atlantic. The phrase “seeing one go in” is more attributed to basketball, soccer and golf, but Klubnik and the offense could certainly benefit from seeing a few scoring opportunities end with cannons going off and the Tiger Band playing.

Decisive wins against lesser opponents won’t be enough to put any fear into the surging Seminoles. Nor will it be enough to completely erase the sting of Monday night.

But the only way out is through.

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The day that took a great Clemson man from us needed a football game to match.

Robert E. (Bobby) McCormick passed away on Monday, and there is nobody who embodied what makes a university and its small, lake-locked town in the northwest corner of South Carolina so special like Bobby.

He owned two degrees from Clemson (classes of 1972 and 1974) and then went onto be a mainstay of the business college first as an economics professor all the way up to being the school’s dean from 2014 to 2018. In 2022, he was given the highest honor the Clemson University Board of Trustees has to offer: the Clemson Medallion.

But to me, he was Bobby. He was a great friend to my dad — so much so that he was one of the reasons I was named Robert but given a different nickname because there could only be one Bobby — just like he was a great friend to so many people. Though he treated my family as his own, I know his wife and two sons will be hurting the most right now, and we send you all our love and support during this awful time.

If you are lucky enough to go to college football games with any regularity, I’m sure you have people who have such a large role on those long-awaited days that the space they occupy in your heart becomes so much greater than the frequency of which you see them would suggest. Although Bobby was always a huge part of my life, I will always remember him in association to those wonderful Saturdays in the fall that we got to spend time with him at his house in Clemson.

It’s unfathomable to me that the next time I’m in town, he won’t be there.

Thank you for everything, Bobby. We’ll all miss you so much. And, if you’ll pardon a columnist’s use of a phrase you don’t see often in a sports section, but one he was so fond of signing off all of his conversations with, “Go Tigers!”

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Robbie Tinsley is an award-winning columnist from his time as the sports editor of The Journal in Seneca, S.C. He now works on a freelance basis from his home in Massachusetts. He can be reached either via Twitter @RTinMan13 or email at robtinsley13@gmail.com.

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This column also appeared in the Saturday, Sept. 9th edition of The (Seneca) Journal.

Zoned out was originally published in Roar May Echo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Heading into the 2019 national championship game, there was no program in college football that Clemson would trade places with.

Winners of 29 straight games, Dabo Swinney’s Tigers were about to play for the sport’s ultimate prize for the fifth time in six years and were favorites to go back-to-back and make it three titles in four years with one more season of eligibility for superstar quarterback Trevor Lawrence still to go. Their nemesis over that stretch, Alabama, hadn’t even made the playoffs in their bid to exact revenge for the 44–16 domination by Clemson over the Tide in the previous title game. Instead, their place was taken by LSU, who had a generational offense powered by quarterback Joe Burrow but not the firm year-over-year foothold on the college football mountaintop the ACC Tigers enjoyed.

Even as the game began, Clemson bolstered its place with a 17–7 second-quarter lead in the Mercedes Benz Superdome in New Orleans. It’s hard to see another moment where the Tigers’ program was as high as it was right then.

Because LSU would score three touchdowns without response the rest of the half en route to a 42–25 victory. And then Lawrence’s time at Clemson would come to end in the same stadium — but one round earlier — as the COVID-addled 2020 season finished with a heavy semifinal defeat to Ohio State. And then came back-to-back three loss seasons in 2021 and 2022 where the Tigers saw long streaks of dominance in the ACC and their biggest rivalry end and were further from the sport’s ultimate summit than they were in any season since 2014.

Entering 2023, the Tigers aren’t just not expected to challenge for the national title, many are predicting they won’t be the class of the ACC, instead opting for Florida State to win its first conference title since 2014. After season opening games against Duke, Florida Atlantic and Charleston Southern, the Seminoles come to Memorial Stadium for a late September showcase game to determine the early favorite for the conference.

Any worry the Clemson program or Swinney may be complacent with their diminished national standing was allayed three days into the offseason. Three days following Georgia’s second national championship in as many years, news broke that offensive coordinator Brandon Streeter had been let go after his first season in charge by Swinney, and the Tigers were going through the final steps in hiring TCU’s Garrett Riley fresh off his large role in the Horned Frogs’ surprise national runner-up season.

After seasons of fireworks from the Clemson offense which powered the frequent title challenges, Tiger fans bore witness to all-too-frequent misfires across 2021 and 2022. After Lawrence and star running back Travis Etienne departed after the 2020 season, Tony Elliott struggled with the solo role he previously shared with Jeff Scott in the first of those seasons before departing to take the Virginia head coaching job, and then Streeter’s early success in his place to start the 2022 season fizzled toward the end of the season. Riley is now tasked with injecting new ideas to an offensive gameplan that many felt became predictable over the past two seasons.

“We are going to be violent and fast,” Riley said of his philosophy during his introduction to the media in February.

Riley inherits an offense not short on potential, but with plenty of question marks. New trigger man Cade Klubnik officially steps into the role he largely inherited two drives into Clemson’s ACC Championship game win over North Carolina. The sophomore from Texas put his enormous potential on display during a 39–10 dismantling of the Tar Heels which earned him the game’s MVP honors, but then also showed why the staff might have been wary to him in place of veteran QB D.J. Uiagalelei the rest of the season when he struggled in Clemson’s Orange Bowl loss to Tennessee.

While Uiagalalei took the brunt of the on-field criticism for the Tigers’ offensive struggles during his time with the team, the decline in pass-catching talent from those glory days was also a culprit in the issues. Beaux Collins and Antonio Williams now have their chance to star with the new system and new signal caller in place, and they’ll be supported by young prospects like Adam Randall, Cole Turner and Tyler Brown, while Jake Briningstool and Sage Ennis will provide threats from the tight end position.

But while the passing game provides an unknown albeit exciting commodity, the Clemson offense will lean on two veteran running backs in Will Shipley and Phil Mafah along with four returning starters on the offensive line to provide blue-chip proven success. Swinney provided a ripple during fall camp when he called on the two to be 1,000-yard rushers in Riley’s new offense, but Shipley exceeded that total with his 1,182-yard, 11-touchdown sophomore campaign and Mafah has often looked to be equally as capable of a running back albeit in more of a supporting role (551 yards and 4 touchdowns in ’22).

Streeter’s tenure as a new coordinator lasted only a season, but Wes Goodwin will get a second campaign to prove he’s the man to succeed longtime defensive coordinator Brent Venables, now at Oklahoma as head coach. Goodwin’s first season wasn’t an unqualified success as the Tiger defense struggled in each of their losses and needed to be bailed out in an early-season shootout win at Wake Forest, but a combination of youth early and ill-health late could be blamed just as easily as Goodwin.

The concerns heading into 2023 are more centered around depth than front-line starting talent, particularly outside the defensive line, which has its usual battery of veteran presence (Tyler Davis, Xavier Thomas, Tyler Davis and Ruke Orhorhoro) and promising young players (Peter Woods, TJ Parker, Vic Burley). Linebackers Barrett Carter and Jeremiah Trotter are all-American candidates but aside from Wade Woodaz, there isn’t much behind them especially with Tyler Venables from nearby Daniel High School already ailing, and while the defensive backs have more established options like Nate Wiggins, Jalyn Phillips, Andrew Mukuba, Sheridan Jones, and RJ Mickens, the memories of South Carolina tearing through their depleted ranks in late November will still be fresh on their minds.

Swinney isn’t one for showcasing his fiery side with the media, but a clip of him speaking to the team was posted as part of a package put together by motivational speaker Eric Thomas who also spoke with the team showed his challenge to his players to have no regrets from their time with the team.

“There aren’t any guarantees for what we’re chasing,” Swinney said. “This is your shot. Every class since 2013 has won a national title here. Y’all are on the clock.”

That clock begins on Labor Day night in Durham, N.C. Eighteen Mondays and fifteen teams stand in the Tigers way before the 2023 season bids adieu on January 8, 2024, with the national championship game in Houston.

Time will tell where Clemson will be on college football’s mountaintop when the clock hits triple zero that early January night.

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Robbie Tinsley is an award-winning columnist from his time as the sports editor of The Journal in Seneca, S.C. He now works on a freelance basis from his home in Massachusetts. He can be reached either via Twitter @RTinMan13 or email at robtinsley13@gmail.com.

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This column also appeared in The (Seneca) Journal’s football magazine earlier this month.

The climb was originally published in Roar May Echo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Non-CFP bowls have lost their luster; perhaps they should consider shift

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Once upon a time, the Orange Bowl was the mecca of what Clemson could hope to achieve in a season, and after a one-year sojourn in the Cheez-It Bowl, it’s a return to a grand postseason stage for the Tigers.

Tennessee is wrapping up its first 10-win season in 15 years and haven’t played in a bowl as big as the Orange Bowl in two decades.

So why does this feel like a consolation prize rather than a fitting reward?

An unfortunate side effect of the move to the College Football Playoff system has been the decay of the prestige of the other bowl games. More and more players from the 78 of 82 teams participating in the non-playoff postseason are opting against playing in the game in favor of either starting their NFL Draft preparations or moving onto their next team.

Even Dabo Swinney, ever in search of the bright side of the equation, invoked the playoff when he was describing the Orange Bowl matchup — “To me, this is a playoff match-up,” he said — rather than playing up the setting.

Now, it’s not as if both teams will be ambivalent about their performance tonight. In fact, a large share of momentum is on the table for whoever gets to stand at the center of Hard Rock Stadium with a crystal bowl of oranges around the time the calendar flips to December 31st.

For Josh Heupel and his Volunteers, it would be the confirmation that his program has returned to the upper echelon of college football after just two seasons at the helm. New quarterback Joe Milton enters his second start hoping to stamp his credentials for the team’s starting role heading into 2023, despite the incoming five-star freshman Nico Iamaleava.

Meanwhile, Swinney doesn’t have to worry about Clemson’s place among college football’s elite after bringing home another ACC Championship and 10-win season, but another big SEC pelt to go along with more signs that freshman quarterback Cade Klubnik is the man to take the Tigers back to the playoff in 2023 would be a great way to cap the season.

And maybe, just maybe, the feel-good factor will help one or two of the Tigers who are on the fence about returning for another season on to the side that involves them running down the Hill next September.

Perhaps that means that the Orange Bowl is fulfilling its role in this non-CFP cycle, but it’s hard not to look toward the expansion of the playoff to 12 teams in two years’ time and wonder what the future of the bowl games looks like.

As a reminder, the top four conference winners will receive a bye into the quarterfinals while seeds No. 5 through 12 will face off on the campus of the higher seeded teams, but then the rest of the games will be held at the biggest bowl sites. It’s hard to imagine the quarterfinals won’t move to campuses eventually as the top teams lobby for a chance to host a playoff game to add to the prize of winning your conference and as the financial realities of three expensive off-campus trips for the final two teams and their fanbases comes into view.

At such a time, the majority of bowl games will have to look into the mirror and determine what is the best way to remain relevant. Perhaps they keep the status quo and hold onto whatever former glory they can still grasp. Or perhaps they embrace the move to exhibition status by moving their games to the end of spring practice or even the beginning of the next football season.

Wouldn’t that bring back the specialness of these otherwise odd meetings, while reducing the obligation of teams and players who would rather have made the playoff? Imagine these two teams fresh off fall practice with their influx of star freshmen kicking off the 2023 in style.

Imagine the return of the festival of football that New Years’ Day used to be, converted from a digestif for the previous season into an aperitif for the season yet to come.

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Robbie Tinsley is an award-winning columnist from his time as the sports editor of The Journal in Seneca, S.C. He now works on a freelance basis from his home in Massachusetts. He can be reached either via Twitter @RTinMan13 or email at robtinsley13@gmail.com.

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This column also appears in the GameDay edition of The (Seneca) Journal on December 30th.

Orange you glad? was originally published in Roar May Echo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When Clemson’s offense hit the skids during the last month of the season, there was a notion that the problems were not limited to poor quarterback play.

When you see receivers dropping passes and befuddling play-calling decisions to go along with misplaced passes, it’s not a bad conclusion to come to. And it’s a conclusion that still holds merit.

However, if you were going to draw up a demonstration to disprove said conclusion, it would look a whole heck of a lot like the ACC Championship game did on Saturday night.

Veteran quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei was given the start. The first play was scripted to help get him into rhythm — a simple 4-yard comeback route to Joseph Ngata — and the throw bounced at Ngata’s feet. The man who looked so improved and confident through the season’s first seven games had slumped back into his struggling form from 2021. Uiagalelei would take the first six snaps of the game, complete just two of his five passes and see two drives end without a first down.

The plan going into the night was to give freshman Cade Klubnik the third drive. The highly touted Texan had come off the bench to help lead Clemson back from a big deficit against Syracuse in the eighth game of the season, but when called upon to try to do the same against Notre Dame, he threw an interception to all but seal the defeat. Klubnik is Clemson’s heir apparent, but up to that point, there had been more public signs he would need another full offseason to grow into the role than signs he was the answer to the offense’s woes.

The key phrase being “up to that point” because what followed was a near masterclass by Klubnik, as he took the Tigers on back-to-back-to-back touchdown drives. Uiagalelei’s second-half performance the week prior did not present Klubnik with a high bar to clear, but he scraped his head on the ceiling all the same.

At his primary vocation, Klubnik completed his first 10 passes, including one gorgeous deep throw to little-known freshman receiver Cole Turner for Clemson’s longest completed pass of the season, and the streak only ended with a drop. He also ran for a touchdown and caught a 19-yard pass from Phil Mafah. The first time he even faced a third down was on his fourth drive, as the Tigers were hoping to add points before the half, and he surveyed the field before calmly picking up a first down with his legs, leading to a field goal to stretch Clemson’s halftime lead to 24–10 en route to a 39–10 victory and seventh ACC championship in the last eight years.

Klubnik’s final stat line read 20-of-24 passing for 279 yards and one touchdown, plus a rushing touchdown as part of 30 yards on the ground and the 19 yards catching. His on-time throws helped elevate the play of wide receivers who had looked pedestrian throughout the season, and he facilitated the first 100-yard receiver for the Tigers on the season in Turner, who caught three balls for 101 yards. Despite Nate Wiggins’ heroics with a key pass break up, a blocked field goal and a second-half interception returned for a touchdown to all-but-seal the victory, Klubnik was an easy choice for MVP of the game.

It was the type of performance to simultaneously make Clemson fans excited for the future and make them angry about the past.

On the latter, the natural reaction was to wonder if Klubnik could’ve helped the Tigers overcome the second-half deficit against South Carolina a week ago. Whether or not the Tigers could’ve jumped Ohio State for the №4 seed in the College Football Playoff (or whether that would’ve been good for the Tigers who would’ve been heavy underdogs against Georgia) is a separate issue, but the ending of the rivalry winning streak and the validation it gives Shane Beamer’s program moving forward definitely makes the non-decision to give Klubnik a shot maddening. Even just picking more spots for Klubnik to play throughout the season to make him a more experienced and viable option for that second half is something the coaching staff will regret in hindsight.

But the excitement about the program moving forward should outweigh any frustrations. Because after the November swoon, there were real concerns that the best days of the Dabo Swinney era could be behind the Tigers, especially if the issues surrounding the offense were as systemic as looked against Notre Dame and South Carolina. Seeing Klubnik be able to elevate the receivers around him and seeing a more creative gameplan utilized reduces those concerns.

The future is not guaranteed. The defense will need a severe retooling given the exits this offseason, and that’s an area where the transfer portal may need to explored. But now exists the possibility the offense can hit the ground running and perhaps be able to carry the defense as needed.

Perhaps that’s too hopeful on Klubnik after only one start, but hope has been hard to come by for the Clemson offense of late.

The past has passed. The trajectory of the future looks a lot better.

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Robbie Tinsley is an award-winning columnist from his time as the sports editor of The Journal in Seneca, S.C. He now works on a freelance basis from his home in Massachusetts. He can be reached either via Twitter @RTinMan13 or email at robtinsley13@gmail.com.

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This column also appears in the Wednesday edition of The (Seneca) Journal on December 7th.

Tension tamer was originally published in Roar May Echo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When the calendar flipped to November, the 2021 Clemson football season felt distant in the rearview mirror.

Yes, the Tigers hadn’t been as impressive to that point of the season as they had been in their College Football Playoff contention heyday, but after a one-year hiatus, they were undefeated, on the brink of another trip to the ACC Championship and right in the thick of the most important part of the CFP rankings.

My oh my, what a difference a month makes.

A blowout loss at Notre Dame and a mistake-riddled, gut-wrenching end to their long-held winning streak of South Carolina later, suddenly all the questions of 2021 are right back at the forefront of every Clemson fan’s mind.

“Is this the end?” “Are the best days of the Dabo Swinney era behind us?” “How could the good old days have ended so abruptly?”

The nature of being a fan is to assume you know the answers to your most feared questions long before the writing actually meets the wall. But it’s hard to argue with Clemson fans who are in full Doomsday-prep mode after last week’s loss to the Gamecocks. Not that there is any variation of a loss to their nearest and most hated rivals that Clemson fans could’ve stood, but so many of the elements of the game were tailor-made to send the Tiger faithful into the histrionics we’ve seen since Saturday.

Elements like the 14–0 lead, the abandonment of the succeeding running game, the turnovers that reared their ugly head at the worst possible moments, the missed assignments in the defensive secondary, the feeling that even despite all of the mistakes that the game was still there to be won and the end of the six-year long home winning streak in this particular fashion.

But most of all, it was the denouement to the two-year saga that has been the rapid decline of the Tigers’ once-feared passing game. The face of that decline for now and evermore is quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei, and while the junior certainly played a fair part in the Tigers’ struggles of Saturday, it was again a situation where all elements of the assembly line worked against each other — pass-caller, pass-thrower and pass-catcher. But when a maligned quarterback goes 8-for-29 for 99 yards and a highly-touted back-up quarterback never gets off the sideline, it distills the top-shelf angst you’ve seen pouring out of Clemson fans ever since.

So what now?

Well, in the short-term, a modicum of goodwill is on the table this weekend with a chance to win the ACC Championship — once upon a time, the attainable jewel for a season’s crown in Tiger Town. But with fans questioning when the Tigers will have another chance to compete for a national title, there’s only so much that beating a 9–3 North Carolina team can quiet the masses.

The primary directive between now and the beginning of the 2023 season will be to reestablish a reliable passing attack. The presence of Will Shipley and Phil Mafah at running back will mean the Tigers should be able to lean on their running game again, but it will only be so successful if the Tigers cannot threaten teams with the chance of the downfield pass.

It’s not out of the realm of possibility that the primary issues of the past couple of years more down to personnel than play-calling, so the departure of a large chunk of said personnel either via graduation or transfer with another highly touted quarterback and four new receivers set to come into the program in their stead as part of a talented recruiting class provides the shuffle needed to prove or disprove the notion. You also have to wonder if the uncertainly leads to Clemson to consider grabbing their first big transfer portal acquisition under Swinney.

However, those are largely conversations for the offseason, and the beginning of that shuffle doesn’t have to wait until 2023. It’s understandable if the coaching staff views the ACC Championship with enough weight to still want the experienced Uiagalelei taking the first and primary snaps from behind center, but the time to hold freshman Cade Klubnik fully in reserve has passed.

The Texan is not a readymade product like freshman predecessors Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence and he doesn’t have the same weapons as those future title-winning quarterbacks had to throw to either, but last week’s second half does not provide a high bar he needs to clear to show improvement. If he plays a role in a Clemson win, it could go long way to forcing eyes away from the number two on the right side of the Tigers’ record and toward the №11 on the left-hand side.

Another Clemson championship may not be enough to stem another Clemson crisis.

But there’s only one place you can truly change fans’ minds — on the field.

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Robbie Tinsley is an award-winning columnist from his time as the sports editor of The Journal in Seneca, S.C. He now works on a freelance basis from his home in Massachusetts. He can be reached either via Twitter @RTinMan13 or email at robtinsley13@gmail.com.

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This column also appears in the Saturday edition of The (Seneca) Journal on December 3rd.

Another Clemson crisis was originally published in Roar May Echo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Life is full of duality.

Joy needs sorrow. Yin needs yang. Light needs darkness.

Heroes need villains.

If you are of a persuasion to view the Clemson Tigers as the protagonist of the movie that is college football, there is no team that has been an antagonist as consistently over the last 40 years as the Florida State Seminoles.

Yes, South Carolina should fit that role more naturally, but the Seminoles’ position within the Tigers’ conference and periods of dominance set them apart from the Gamecocks.

Growing up as a Clemson fan during the late 90s and early 2000s when both schools were coached by Bowdens (legendary coach Bobby in Tallahassee and his son Tommy in Clemson), Florida State was juggernaut you could never see the Tigers being able to compete with.

But first came wins on the field and then came wins on the recruiting trail, and suddenly the playing field began to feel more equal as the collective Bowden eras ended with Dabo Swinney and Jimbo Fisher becoming the coaching combatants. By the late 2000s, it seemed like Clemson was edging ahead, but then Fisher found his quarterback in Jameis Winston and the Seminoles rattled off two gut-punch victories in a row in the series — a beatdown in what was supposed to be a top-5 showcase in Death Valley en route to a national title in 2013 and then a heartbreaker in overtime in Doak Campbell in 2014.

With Clemson finding a championship-caliber quarterback of its own in Deshaun Watson around that time and the Gamecocks’ streak of victories over the Tigers ending later in 2014, it felt like the only thing standing in the Tigers’ way was Florida State.

The pair played out a couple of epics over the next two years with the Tigers winning both late — a Wayne Gallman touchdown run to seal the 2015 win in Clemson, then Jordan Leggett’s legendary dive into the Doak Campbell endzone for the last of four second-half lead changes in a 37–34 Clemson victory that was one of the most indelible moments of the Tigers’ run to the national championship.

The rivalry hasn’t seen any moments like those since Ben Boulware and Christian Wilkins took Seminole quarterback Deondre Francois to the turf to seal that 2016 victory. After 2017, Fisher departed for Texas A&M thanks to an outrageous contract offer from the Aggies, and his replacement, Willie Taggert, lasted only two seasons before being ousted for Mike Norvell. Going into last season, the Tigers had won each of the last five games against the Seminoles and each of the last six ACC titles with the only indelible moment in games between the two teams being one of internet lore as a hefty Florida State fan was caught on camera reading a book shirtless in the Tallahassee sunshine as the Tigers were putting the final touches on a 51–14 win in 2018.

But there are signs the rivalry is returning. After a day-of-game COVID cancellation saw the Tigers and Seminoles not play in 2020, Norvell’s first game against Clemson went right down to the wire with a late desperation play by the Seminoles ending in a fumble recovery touchdown for the Tigers making the final scoreline of 30–20 rather misleading.

And now this weekend, Norvell gets his first crack at the Tigers at home to start trying to turn back the tide in the ACC. The Seminoles got off to their best start since 2015 with four straight wins but have lost two straight to Wake Forest and N.C. State. Nevertheless, this seems like a more cohesive team in that famous Garnet and Gold than they’ve had since the Fisher era.

Meanwhile, Clemson appears to have rebounded from their 2021 swoon, starting 6–0 with only the overtime thriller in Wake Forest going down to the wire. Quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei has epitomized the team’s rebound by stringing together consistent performances to help the Tigers overcome any moments of shakiness.

With Clemson’s good play and Florida State’s back-to-back losses, a betting line where you only need to give 3.5 points in order to bet on the Tigers may raise your eyebrows. And with the midweek recruiting news of a former Clemson commit removing his pledge and likely to flip to Florida State, there’s certainly reason to believe Swinney will have a smattering of fire and brimstone in his pregame messaging to his team.

No matter how the game transpires, this previously dormant rivalry may be regaining its heartbeat. Although Clemson always seems to find a primary antagonist any season Florida State declines the role, there’s no denying whose head the proverbial black hat fits the best.

Sherlock Holmes had Professor Moriarty. The Batman had the Joker. This baseball season reminded us that the Braves have the Mets.

Under the lights of that famous stadium in the state capital of the Sunshine State with that eerie chant echoing through the cauldron of energized Seminole fans, it’ll be another chance to see if Clemson has its Florida State back.

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Robbie Tinsley is an award-winning columnist from his time as the sports editor of The Journal in Seneca, S.C. He now works on a freelance basis from his home in Massachusetts. He can be reached either via Twitter @RTinMan13 or email at robtinsley13@gmail.com.

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This column also appears in the Saturday edition of The (Seneca) Journal on October 15th.

If the black hat fits was originally published in Roar May Echo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There were moments down the stretch of last week’s game at Wake Forest where Clemson and its fans could’ve started to worry.

Demon Deacon quarterback Sam Hartman was running the slow-mesh, father-walking-the-bride-down-the-aisle offense to absolute perfection. Clemson’s young secondary alternated between times where they were either interfering with Wake Forest receivers and times where they were several steps behind them. No matter how improved the Clemson offense had looked, surely they weren’t going to be able to keep up.

But like so many other times before, the Tigers found a way. The defense provided just enough resistance down the stretch to get the game to overtime, and D.J. Uiagalelei capped a brilliant reintroduction to the national spotlight with two more sterling touchdown throws across the two overtime periods. When the final pass was swatted to the ground by Nate Wiggins, the Tigers had not only proved they still had their winning DNA, they had cleared a big hurdle in the race to reclaim its ACC crown.

The next hurdle could be even bigger, though: a showdown with No. 10 N.C. State, the Tigers’ primary ACC antagonist of the last half-decade. Much like Wake Forest, the Wolfpack have a veteran quarterback who will be hoping to exploit the Tigers’ ailing secondary, and on the flipside, it’s hard to see the Tigers being able to put up the kind of offensive numbers on the Wolfpack’s stout defense as they did a week ago.

It’s the kind of stage Clemson is accustomed to — two top-10 teams, College GameDay in town, a prime-time spot on national network TV. Heck, even the threat of Hurricane Ian in a game like this is something Clemson has experience with, harkening back to the Notre Dame showdown in 2015 with Hurricane Joaquin making its presence felt.

For as strong as this N.C. State team looks, the Wolfpack are the unquestioned neophyte of the two. Not only is the program ranked in the top 10 for the first time since 2002, but it is also their first ever top-10 matchup in school history. If they find a way to beat the Tigers, they will be in the driver’s seat for their first Atlantic Division crown and a chance to play for their first ACC championship since 1979.

It’s one thing to play the aggrieved underdog, as they have done so often in this matchup during Dave Doeren’s tenure. Ever since Clemson’s rise to national prominence, N.C. State has tried to play the role of the spoiler, coming close a few times before knocking the already-wobbling Tigers off their perch with an overtime victory in Raleigh last September. Tonight, the Wolfpack won’t have the element of surprise.

This is no longer a bar brawl; they have to step into the ring for a heavyweight prize-fight where the purse is a huge head-to-head win that will surely factor into the final divisional standings.

It’s a similar scenario to last year when N.C. State went to Wake Forest with the Atlantic Division essentially on the line. They lost 45–42.

It’s a similar scenario to their last visit to Memorial Stadium in 2019 where both teams were undefeated and ranked in the top 16. They lost 41–7.

Meanwhile, this will be Clemson’s 22nd top-10 matchup of the Dabo Swinney era. The Tigers lost three of their first four before winning 11 of their next 17 with all six losses either coming in the College Football Playoff or to teams who would go onto play in the College Football Playoff.

There are matchups in this game that favor N.C. State, but history is not one of them.

The rainfall totals expected for tonight’s game have fallen throughout the week.

And I wouldn’t forecast Clemson’s reign falling either.

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Robbie Tinsley is an award-winning columnist from his time as the sports editor of The Journal in Seneca, S.C. He now works on a freelance basis from his home in Massachusetts. He can be reached either via Twitter @RTinMan13 or email at robtinsley13@gmail.com.

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This column also appears in the Saturday edition of The (Seneca) Journal on October 1st.

Reign on was originally published in Roar May Echo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If there was a checklist of what Clemson wanted to achieve through its first three games, you have to believe they ticked off most of their objectives on that list.

Not that there weren’t moments of stress during the Tigers’ wins over Georgia Tech, Furman and Louisiana Tech, but they all ended in lopsided fashion as the team was able to take advantage of an easy start to the 2022 season.

Top of their checklist to this point would’ve been building confidence both for and in quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei. Nothing is quite the force multiplier (or divider) in an athlete’s ability to perform quite like confidence, and Uiagalelei cuts a much more confident figure now than he did all last season. The hallmarks of his struggles in 2021 — panicking as he searched for an option to throw, unable to make quick decisions, missing throws high and wide — have been replaced by a much calmer presence in the pocket and much better throwing accuracy.

A big element in growing a quarterback’s confidence is developing go-to receivers and you can start to see that in Beaux Collins and Antonio Williams. Collins clearly emerged as Uiagalelei’s favorite target during the stretch run last year, and that has continued into 2022 with team highs in yards (158) and touchdowns (3) to this point, but the man who he shares the receptions lead with has been more of a surprise. Williams, a late addition to the incoming recruiting class out of the Columbia area, has started his college career flying, providing the speedy, slot receiver the Tigers so desperately needed. Add in outside presence Joseph Ngata, who has flashed his potential, and you have a trio of receivers you can build a viable passing attack around.

The play of Uiagalelei has allowed the offense to not have to ride its established running game. Will Shipley has carries of 10, 10 and 12 through the first three games after that number was usually around 20 per game when he was healthy as a freshman. Some fans have bemoaned the lack of touches for Shipley when the offense has gone through its rough stretches but making sure to keep Shipley as well as fellow backs Phil Mafah and Kobe Pace fresh for games where they may be needed more is surely something the coaching staff has had in the back of their mind.

If there’s been a disappointment through the season’s first three games, it’s been with the pass defense. Both Furman and Louisiana Tech saw success through the air against the Tigers, especially on third down. One stat that jumps off the page is the Tigers’ opponents are 8-for-8 passing on third down and between 7–9 yards to go, averaging 16 yards per throw and picking up the first down six of those times. By comparison, the Tigers only allowed nine first downs on 25 passing attempts under those circumstances all of last year. Both the pass rush and the defensive backfield has seen a number of absences in the last two games, and there’s optimism many of those players will be back for Wake Forest.

Ah, Wake Forest. In Clemson’s history, when you’ve talked about easy stretches of the schedule, so often they have included the small private school from Winston-Salem. But the Demon Deacons are a much tougher outfit these days and they are the reigning ACC Atlantic Division champs after knocking Clemson from that perch last year. Led by a “he’s still in school?!” legend in Sam Hartman at quarterback, Wake is 3–0 and ranked №21 after edging out Liberty last week.

Things don’t get much easier for Clemson after this week. Fellow Atlantic Division hopeful N.C. State (ranked №12) comes to town hoping to make it two-in-a-row against the Tigers. They too have a strong quarterback in Devin Leary who threw for four touchdowns in the Wolfpack’s overtime win over Clemson a season ago. Many have talked about Clemson trying to get back to the College Football Playoff, but the first step is winning the division, and by playing the primary combatants for that crown back-to-back, there’s a path to Clemson basically being out of the race by the second day in October.

Road trips to Boston College and then to resurgent Florida State follow. Syracuse visits and as if the Orange didn’t play Clemson hard enough, they too are 3–0. The trip to Notre Dame in early November doesn’t look as daunting after the Irish’s slow start, but they are still a talented team, as are Miami who will be making just their second trip to Clemson since 2010 to cap the conference slate.

The easy start was just what Clemson needed, but anyone expecting the ACC to fall at the feet of its former conqueror is sorely mistaken.

Can Uiagalelei and the passing game continue their success against better opposition? Or will they have to rely on Shipley and Company to run them out of trouble again?

Can you chalk the defense’s struggles up to circumstance? Or were those the early warning signs that the unit’s best days are behind them (and gone with their former coordinator)?

We’ll find out soon enough. The training wheels are well and truly off now.

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Robbie Tinsley is an award-winning columnist from his time as the sports editor of The Journal in Seneca, S.C. He now works on a freelance basis from his home in Massachusetts. He can be reached either via Twitter @RTinMan13 or email at robtinsley13@gmail.com.

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This column also appears in the Saturday edition of The (Seneca) Journal on September 24th.

Training wheels was originally published in Roar May Echo on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.