Time to discuss Dabo’s doins.
It’s an important week for NC State, which really needs to put together a good effort that it can build on moving forward with a new quarterback, whether or not it’s good enough to beat Clemson. The oddsmakers obviously don’t find State winning this game likely, but is Clemson really three touchdowns better than this Wolfpack group? That feels like a lot to me, and the Tigers still face many of the issues that plagued them last year.
That’s because our old pal Dabo went another offseason refusing to take a transfer, doubling down on his faith in the players on hand. The only other FBS teams not to take a transfer were the service academies.
This discussion is overblown to an extent, because the guys Dabo’s putting faith in are blue-chip talents. It’s not like Clemson would need a zillion transfers anyway, given the number of dudes the Tigers have.
And Clemson was not going to transition from Cade Klubnik, who had an underwhelming 2023 and began 2024 in the same fashion. Klubnik sliced up a bad Appalachian State defense (103 in SP+) in Week 2, but it remains unclear if he’s headed for a better year in his second as the starter.
He’s the enigma this week—if the extreme quality of that App performance, from the offense in general and Klubnik specifically is an indicator, then the Tigers should improve on their win total from last season and do more damage in the ACC.
It’s just tough to guess on that, since Clemson didn’t add anything to its receiving corps through the portal and lost Will Shipley at running back. As good as the overall picture looked against App, it was every bit as ugly against Georgia. NC State’s defense presents a challenge somewhere in between those two.
The Tigers still have Phil Mafah at running back, giving them someone they can hand the ball 20+ times if they need to, and no doubt Clemson would love to be able to do that.
State got the ideal circumstances out of this game last year, stymieing Clemson’s ground game and playing with the lead, which led to Klubnik throwing the ball 50 times. That did not work out well for the Tigers.
NC State needs to at least limit Clemson on the ground again and put that pressure on Klubnik to test his decision-making. You need not weep for the Tigers’ passing game, mind: tight end Jake Briningstool (50 grabs in ‘23) is back, as is leading receiver Tyler Brown (52 grabs). There is sophomore Antonio Williams, a former top-100 player, and freshman Bryant Wesco, also a former top-100 player. You can understand why Clemson would be reluctant to recruit a transfer over talent like this, but it makes growing pains more likely.
On the defensive side, we’ve gotten used to Clemson having multiple Dudes in the front seven, and this team is no different there. Barrett Carter might be the best linebacker in the league, and the Tigers have a pair of sophomore defensive linemen with scary-big potential in Peter Woods and TJ Parker. Woods is a 315-pound monster that Clemson lists as a defensive end, and Parker, a more, uh, normal-sized DE, had 12.5 TFL as a true freshman.
There’s an ideal mix of highly-regarded youth and proven veteran experience on this defense, and so I must lament that it probably isn’t falling off a cliff anytime soon. Clemson can still get plenty of things done with these guys, but the offense has to cooperate. We’ll see what NC State can do about that.