What We Learned About Clemson in 48-20 Win Over Louisiana Tech

Clemson's best offensive weapon, defensive issues and passing game improvements were all on display in Week 3.

Dabo Swinney said after the Week 3 win over Louisiana Tech that his Clemson Tigers "are not a great team yet because great teams don't do some of what we did tonight."

The head coach then followed that up with praise about how the players competed, but he's not off base. The No. 5 Tigers (3-0) continue to show flashes of big plays, big stops and big potential.

And then suddenly they don't. Big plays stop. Big stops stop. The uneven, inconsistent play takes hold. They led the Bulldogs 13-3 at the half.

Through three games, though, Clemson has yet to look complete. This team has to make great improvements if it wants to win the ACC and get back to the College Football Playoff. 

That's not something people want to read about a preseason top-4 team. They want to feel good that the Tigers are ready to unleash on the ACC like the days of old. Actually, it's more like two years ago. 

Still, there is a silver lining a quarter through the regular season. The Tigers aren't a train wreck on offense, there's great talent on defense when everybody is available, and outside of the Georgia Bulldogs, who checks all the boxes right now?

The answer is really nobody. There are a lot of good teams struggling to become great, including Alabama. The Tigers are in that mix, but the road to any championship is about to get much more difficult with ACC Atlantic battles against Wake Forest and NC State in the next two weeks.

Here's what we learned, or confirmed, about Clemson following a 48-20 win over La. Tech on Saturday in a contest that was just a two-score game with under 10 minutes to play:

Get Ship the ball

When a team focuses on its best offensive weapon, good things generally happen, and the best offensive weapon is clearly Will Shipley. It's been questioned why he hasn't touched the ball more than 21 times in the first two games. And even during Saturday's breakout performance of the season, in which he rushed for 139 yards on 12 carries and scored two touchdowns, he disappeared from the offense in the second quarter. 

That just so happened to be the same time the scoring attack got bogged down and off track. They went scored three points in that quarter and Shipley went into the half with 35 yards on just five carries. It didn't help that Shipley missed some key blocks that hurt quarterback DJ Uiagalelei's timing on throws, but when the Tigers went back to Shipley in the third quarter, he took over. The sophomore had chunk-yard runs of 32, 27 and 26 in the second half. That's huge for an offense that lacked explosiveness early in the season. Now, can the Tigers build on that and find ways to get him more than the 14 touches he had last night? The season could hinge on it. 

Defense has issues

Maybe you can chalk it up to six starters being out, but Clemson wasn't dominant on the stop side of the ball for the second consecutive week. When you go to the bench like they did Saturday, especially in the secondary, young players are going to miss assignments. They're going to be out of place. They're going to read the offense wrong and a bust play is going to occur. It's a trial-by-fire situation. Swinney was confident after the game that the mistakes are fixable as long as the players are coachable. 

But the invincibility of a unit that gave up over 300 passing yards to La. Tech's air-raid attack is clearly not there right now. The Bulldogs had seven passes go for at least 20 yards. No one runs on Clemson is still apparently a thing, but the Tigers produced just one sack in the game. That put the secondary made up of Fred Davis II and two freshmen, Jeadyn Lukus and Toriano Pride Jr., in too many losing situations. But this group forced four turnovers to get out of some tight spots and run away with the win. The screen game didn't kill them this time, but coverages have to tighten up and trustable depth in the secondary will take time to create. 

Passing game has life

Coming into Saturday, the Clemson offense had produced four passing plays of 20 yards or more against Georgia Tech and Furman combined. It put up three against Louisiana Tech and had a 19-yard TD as well. Joseph Ngata laid out for a deep ball and made the kind of grab that remind you of his elite talent. Antonio Williams doesn't always know what he's doing, which he showed when he almost undercut a pass to Beaxu Collins that went for six points, but he got his first touchdown, catches nearly everything and should see his role rise significantly. Speaking of Collins, he now has three TD catches in three games, so that high school connection with Uiagalelei is showing up. 

As for the QB, he's putting the ball in places he simply didn't last year. Uiagalelei had a pass off his back foot that put the ball at risk, but other than that, he's done a phenomenal job of not giving defenses chances to pick him off. There's real progress made in this crucial facet of the game. There's also a great need for improvement. Receivers still aren't getting enough separation and pass protection will have to get better as the level of defensive fronts increases. But Saturday showed a ton of promise and should give the Tigers hope that this passing attack can go and win them some games this year instead of being the liability that it was last fall. 

"We could hardly throw for a first down last year, and I think we've gotten a lot better," Swinney said. "We're still leaving some chicken on the bone."

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