The Clemson Tigers struggled on offense at times last season, leading to quite a disappointing season for the team. But under new offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, they’re making one somewhat surprising change that the team hopes will improve their offense: making the playbook smaller.
As the Tigers begin spring practice, starting quarterback Cade Klubnik revealed that the team has fewer than half as many plays in the playbook this year compared to last year.
“We went into a game last year with like 80 plays in the play call sheet and we’re going with like 30 now, so just being able to run less plays and getting really really good at it,” Klubnik said according to On3. “But he’s even said it doesn’t matter if they know that the play is, we’re still going to be able to beat them at it. So just being really really good at what we’re doing and we had 15 plays today in our install and we ran the same 15 plays for two hours.”
Klubnik thinks a smaller playbook will help the team better attack defenses.
“You’re just getting really good at doing the same play in a bunch of different ways and it’s just reps and reps and reps, and it’s just hard to defend because you’re running the same thing out of different personnel, different formations and it’s fun. And then you’re getting to tag receivers, put them on different routes.” Klubnik said. “If you’re seeing things on the field you can just give them one little signal and they’ve got a completely different route or play. So just the speed of it and just the freedom in it is really awesome.”
We’ll have to see how these changes help Clemson this season.
[On3]
About Kevin Harrish