2013 Pre-season Rankings: #14 Clemson Tigers

SportsRatings 2013 College Football Pre-season Top 125

Clemson Tigers  (ACC #2; Atlantic #2)

#14	2012 Results	AP #11 USA #9	Strength:#17  Success:#13  Overall:#15
		Record: 11-2	Bowl: Beat LSU 25-24 (Chick-fil-A)
	2013 Outlook	Picks: AP #8 | USA #8 | Lindy's #7 | Athlon #6 | Steele #20
		Record: 9-3	Bowl: Chick-fil-A (Eligibility odds: 98%)

Clemson is definitely going to be good again, but if they hadn't made that last-second field goal to beat LSU would they be in everyone's pre-season top ten?

Offense 6 ret. starters	2012 Scoring Offense: #6 (raw) #6 (adjusted for opposition)
	2013 Projected Scoring Offense: #8 (adjusted)

Tajh Boyd leads the Tiger offense again, but without DeAndre Hopkins and Andre Ellington.

Passing Game	2012 Passing Rank: #13 (raw) #8 (adjusted)	2012 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #88
	2013 Projected Passing Rank: #12 (adjusted)	2103 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #74

Clemson quarterback Tajh Boyd (3,986 yards, 36 TDs, 13 int) was overshadowed last year by Johnny Manziel but has renewed Heisman buzz going into his senior year. DeAndre Hopkins (1,405 yards, 18 TDs) wasn't supposed to be Clemson's superstar receiver last year—it was supposed to be Sammy Watkins (708 yards). Hopkins departs and Watkins is the only one of the top four receivers back as he tries to recapture his freshman form (1,219 yards). Three others are back who had 150+ yards. The offensive line should make progress in reducing last year's 31 sacks as four starters return. Watkins ought to have a great year, but now they have one superstar receiver instead of two so the passing game might slip just a bit.

Rushing

2012 Rushing Rank: #36 (raw) #29 (adjusted)

2013 Projected Rushing Rank: #30 (adj.)

Andre Ellington led with 1,081 yards (8 TDs) last year and he's gone, leaving QB Boyd (514 yards, 10 TDs) the leading returning rusher. Roderick McDowell had 450 (5 TDs) and should be an adequte replacement for Ellington. The offensive line will help see to that—starters Tyler Shatley, Brandon Thomas, David Beasley, and Gifford Timothy are all back.

2012 Adjusted Stats:	Rush Defense: #70    Pass Defense  per-game: #75   Per-attempt: #59
Defense 6 ret. starters	'12 Scoring Defense: #50 (raw) #52 (adjusted)	'12 sacks: #27	'12 picks: #68
	'13 Projected Scoring Defense: #51 (adjusted)	'13 sacks: #25	'13 picks: #57

Clemson's defensive line returns three starters and to replace Malliciah Goodman (7 sacks) they have Vic Beasley, who had 8 sacks out of 18 total tackles. At linebacker Jonathan "Tig" Willard (#1 tackler w/95, 7.5 tackles for loss) but #2 tackler Spencer Shuey returns. The secondary is hit the hardest as three starters are gone including Rashard Hall (4 int). We may see some shifting in opponents' play-calling as the rush defense gets better and pass defense swoons a bit, but overall we see about the same level of quality.

Special Teams/Situations

• Kicking Game:  Chandler Catanzaro made 18 of 19 field goals last year, including the famous one that lifted them over LSU He's back but punter Spencer Benton (39.2 average) is gone; sophomore Bradley Pinion (39.4 average on 9 punts) will take over.
• Return Game:  Sammy Watkins averaged 19.8 yards on kickoffs this year, down from last year's 25.0 (boosted by a touchdown return). Adam Humphries had a 4.8 average on punt returns. Both are back.
• Turnovers projection:  Like everything else, the team's turnovers will probably be about the same next year.

Coaching/Recruiting      2013 Recruiting Rank: #14          2012 Recruiting Rank: #31
Dabo Swinney's 2013 class is a very good one, ranking 2nd in the ACC behind Florida State and ahead of Miami. Clemson just had their first back-to-back 10-win seasons since '88-'90.

2012 Recap 
The relevant points are: won their first three games; lost to Florida State; won their next seven games; lost to South Carolina. Beat LSU 25-24 in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. This last point was the first "big" game Clemson had won since last year's ACC championship, and that one was followed by the 70-35 loss to West Virginia. Because the 2012 team ended with momentum rather than disappointment, that feeling has carried over when people contemplate the Tigers' future. Thus Clemson is overrated already in the pre-season, and it's all because of a field goal. If they had missed it, the Tigers would have fallen to around 16-18 and probably started out ranked #20. Instead they rose to #9 and #11 and start out #8 in both polls.

Last year's prediction: We ranked Clemson #26 last year—we underrated them—and projected a 9-3 regular season. But the one loss we picked game-by-game was Florida State. In that sense we overrated them, and between the two projections were pretty close to reality.

2013 Outlook

Clemson 2013 schedule & forecast
8/31	Sat	vs.	Georgia	39%	L
9/7	Sat	vs.	South Carolina St.	100%	W
9/19	Thu	@	*N.C. State	86%	W
9/28	Sat	vs.	*Wake Forest	97%	W
10/5	Sat	@	*Syracuse	80%	W
10/12	Sat	vs.	*Boston College	88%	W
10/19	Sat	vs.	*Florida State	50%	W
10/26	Sat	@	*Maryland	85%	W
11/2	Sat	@	*Virginia	85%	W
11/14	Thu	vs.	*Georgia Tech	76%	W
11/23	Sat	vs.	The Citadel	99%	W
11/30	Sat	@	South Carolina	40%	L
Straight up: 10-2  Cume: 9-3  Bowl eligible: 98%

We've been saying Clemson is overrated if they're in the top ten—their offense, defense, rushing, and passing seem nearly identical to last year's levels—but they have a chance of being a national title contender if the ball bounces their way in a few key games. And all three are within their reach.

The first key game comes right away when the Tigers face Georgia. Playing at home gives them a real chance that playing on the road wouldn't. Win or lose they should be able to clean up their next five opponents, since they have another big game to look forward to as they host Florida State. In this case, the home venue really could be the difference in what is a tossup game. Five more wins should follow before their last hurdle, South Carolina. We'd favor them at home in this one but on the road we go with the Gamecocks, but it's anyone's ball game really.

Win all three of those and they're a national title contender; they might even be able to take a loss to Georgia, since it comes so early. Losing to FSU might keep them out of the ACC title game, and losing to South Carolina late would derail their chances.

Using the cumulative estimates and our rankings, we don't put Clemson in the ACC title game, and as the #2 ACC team they'd head back to the Chick-fil-A Bowl to face the #6 SEC team—which might be LSU again—unless they rank high enough to be an at-large selection for a BCS bowl, another possibility. Or, if we use the game-by-game projections as gospel and the FSU game tilts their way, they'd be in the ACC title game, win that, and be in the Orange Bowl...but not in the running for a national title with 2 losses to SEC teams.

More Previews • Full coverage of all 125 FBS teams
SportsRatings 2013 College Football Pre-season Top 125

Comments

[Pokerface]

Clemson didn't look overrated tonight vs Georgia!!
That was supposed to be a mismatch but they more than held their own against one of your top teams.

I would say you've got them vastly underrated, but then they'll probably do something dumb like lose vs Maryland or Wake, as usual.......

[SportsRatings]

I don't think anyone called it a mismatch, we expected Clemson to lose by about a field goal and they won by a field goal...but bottom line Georgia is one of the top teams and Clemson got the job done. The Tigers have two more big tests, plus all the games they're supposed to win, but if they play like they did last year those Maryland-Wake Forest-type games won't be a problem.