Clemson Football: Will the Boo Birds return to Death Valley?
The season’s first two weeks haven’t been pleasant for the Clemson Tigers.
Before they got things together in the second half, Clemson was in a little dogfight with the mid-tier FCS program, Charleston Southern. The Tigers held a slight seven-point lead. At one point, the Buccaneers held a 14-7 lead after Cade Klubnik threw a pick-six. And that’s when the boo birds started flying.
Klubnik and the rest of the Tigers were not startled; instead, it woke them up.
“I had to come back and refocus,” Klubnik said after the game. “I had a decision to make. I can chin it and keep rolling and play like me, or let the external factors, the fans, and what people are saying come to my soul.”
The 66-17 win silenced the fans in the stadium, but have they been silenced for good? Clemson’s offense has shown us three different sides.
Against Duke, we saw terrible playcalling and an unpreparred passing game.
In the first half against Charleston Southern, they were a turnover machine, and they were an unstoppable force in the second half.
That type of inconsistency is what makes the boo birds fly.
It’s the third week of the season, and whether or not Garrett Riley has figured out how to make this offense run smoothly is still in question. Florida Atlantic isn’t the team that will determine that, but the Tigers proved last game that fans in Death Valley can not take these games for granted.
What needs to happen is Klubnik and the Tigers need to have a clean game, and the amount of points scored doesn’t matter.
Dropping 66 points doesn’t show that this offense is ready to take on the country’s best. Clemson has to build trust on the offensive side of the ball and trust in the stands.
