Monday PM Notes: The Elliott Files

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Here are notes and quotes from Tony Elliott’s time with the media on campus today, including some interesting nuggets on RPOs, third downs, and opening up the offensive playbook as we get more into October:

“You’re happy for the players because they accepted the challenge. They prepared the right way and they had success. They had the mindset that we challenged them to have coming out of the gate. I’ll tell you what, the last two games for us are good from the standpoint of they get to understand who they are. You go up to North Carolina, you don’t play your best, but you find a way to win. Good teams find a way to win. They understand what our program is built on - winning those close games. Then they have a chance to come back and be challenged and know that our program is built on humility. Not really getting too high or too low. Understanding what it takes to be successful. Then you come out and are able to get a fast start against a very good opponent and are able to take control of the game. It was a good three weeks for us since North Carolina.”

-- Travis had two weeks to re-center himself. He didn’t have his best protection at North Carolina from a pass protection standpoint. Put some stuff on film that he needed to improve upon. Overall, we wanted to be aggressive. We wanted to let these guys know who we are. When we get off to a fast start, it puts a lot of pressure on the opposing team. It allows our defense to pin their ears back.  It was good for those guys to execute those couple of plays to start the game and score on their first drive.

-- Lyn-J Dixon was in on the 10th play of the game. Speaks a lot to his progression thus far. I kind of want these guys to almost be perfect, which is unfair at times. I gotta challenge myself to put them in there when the game is on the line early in the game and get them going and he’s responded. I’m definitely pleased with his progress. He’s starting to lock in on the protections. Feel a lot more comfortable having him in there against the different defenses they face. He did a good job, found a couple of creases, but there is still room for improvement.

-- Challenged the first team after halftime to come out and score right away to put the game away. They did. Wanted to see if they had that "eye of the tiger" to finish off an opponent. Started to put some other guys in and they didn’t have the consistency and execution that they wanted to see. Sure, they were able to move the ball and score a couple points but wants the second group to understand that when they come in the standard doesn’t change. There are guys on offense that we are going to have to develop to give us the depth we are going to need later in the season.

-- On the false starts: At North Carolina, the noise was an issue. They were moving their front a lot and showing some motion before the snap that we really just gotta lock in on. The other day, Florida State was making a couple move calls. Knew they were coming and tried to simulate those looks in practice. Want the line to be aggressive and play on the edge, but still be disciplined. It’s an issue, but we are challenging those guys to get better.

-- With Tee Higgins leaving the game with his hamstring, it was a good opportunity for Joseph Ngata to get some quality playing time. It was a good learning experience for him going up against two elite Florida State cornerbacks in the game when it really counted.

-- Watching Louisville, it’s tough to get a beat on them. It’s still early in the week. They looked like they were doing one thing to start the season and now they are doing something different. They do some things different from a coverage standpoint than what we’ve seen the last couple weeks. We have to challenge our guys to be locked in. They are similar up front to some of the things we’ve seen the last few weeks, but do different things on the back end. The biggest thing is going to be communication. Want to see another fast start and be efficient and get a feel for what they are going to do. They play some trap technique to the field, play some cover 2, a little bit more Cover 2 than what we’ve seen. That’s probably going to put us in a situation where we gotta run the football and be efficient to where we can make them fit that extra defender and exploit that in the pass game.

-- Last season when Clemson played Louisville, they probably knew something was up with the coaching staff at that point in the season. There wasn’t a lot of fight and effort in them. This year, they’re playing hard. They’re probably not the biggest guys. It’s a little bit of a contrast structure. They’re going to play their technique different than what we saw last week because they are not as big as Florida State. They’re playing hard and it looks like they are believing in the scheme. Those guys play with some fire and tenacity and are flying to the football.

-- Said Chez Mellusi is running the ball hard and still has to get a feel for the scheme and have some patience. There’s confidence in playing him against those odd structures he saw against UNC and FSU. There’s a lot that falls on a running back’s plate when it comes to protections. Things are slowing down a little bit for them. For freshmen, Mellusi and Mikey Dukes are ahead of where a lot of freshmen are.

-- Called Luke Price the “trash man,” the guy who loves doing all the dirty work. Has made JC Chalk and Davis Allen understand the physical parts of the game.

-- Was most pleased with the offensive line going up against Florida State’s massive size and recreating the line of scrimmage on almost every play.

-- Was asked why Clemson needed a reminder of why Clemson has been so successful and playing aggressive. Said there are a lot of guys that just got here. Since Trevor was a starter, every game he has finished he was won by 14 points sp he hadn’t had much adversity other than when he faced against Syracuse last year when he got hurt. A lot of guys haven’t been in that situation. And for older guys, when you win 20 in a row, it sometimes turns into ‘this is what we do.’ It can’t be like that. Really re-emphasizing that one-game season and windshield mentality. It’s good for all of us, even adults, that we are reminded to have that intense focus every single day. The hardest thing to do in life for any of us is to handle success. Chasing success is easy because you are driven and focused. When you’ve had success, sometimes it’s easy to say, ‘it’s just going to happen.’ It was also a reminder that we have what it takes to win. A lot of teams would have lost in that situation. We found a way to win. Now, this is really what we are. This is what we are capable of.

-- Said he has to do a good job in certain situations to take the RPO off the play and allow Travis Etienne or Ly-J Dixon to get the ball in their hands. Just calling a designed run, regardless of what the defense is giving them. If you give Travis the ball, he’s going to break a tackle or two. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It takes some stress off of Trevor too in that he doesn’t have to make every situation right. Sometimes you have to force the issue, and that’s what we did, especially once we got down in the red zone.

-- Said the offense is more of an RPO call at least 60 percent of the time off what the defense gives you and short-yardage situations.

--There’s more of a predictability when you are going to definitely hand the ball off because of the sets that you get in to force the issue with some of the RPOs that are taken out. That’s the challenge. This week was good for me to say that this is the next step for our offense. To be able to jump from RPO to designed run to play action to doing some different things.

-- Third down efficiency: Early on, we were probably in some third-and-long situations. We are actually better in short-yardage distances at this point than we were last year in that category. We were better in some of the medium-to-long yardage situations last year. I think we have gotten behind the chains some. This past game, I think a lot of it was the second half at times, and we took some chances out there in two-down situations where we knew we were going for it on fourth down. That changes your thought process a little bit. You may run the ball in that situation. It’s a combination of a couple of things, but that is something we are stressing without guys: we can’t just be an explosive team. We’ve got to make sure that we can be efficient.

-- Missing a Hunter Renfrow type of player on third down? There might be some of that, but it’s tough to say. Justyn Ross has been isolated in the slot, and we’ve had some chances and opportunities, but we didn’t execute. We've got to have a larger sample size before we identify that as the issue. We’ve been in long-yard situations where Renfrow was really good at those medium-range plays. We’ve been decent there, but we haven’t done as well in the 7-10 range.

Amari Rodgers is similar to Renfrow in the short-area quickness. Going forward, definitely trying to get him involved in some third-down situations. Each team has different tendencies, so your thought process is going to change based on what you see on film.

Trying to use Chalk more in those types of situations. If you go back before Renfrow, it was Jordan Leggett and Dwayne Allen. That was the guy that created that big-time matchup advantage in the slot to the boundary. When Renfrow came around, you started using him there.

-- Said as Clemson finishes up the “primetime” phase and is getting into the “championship” phase, this is the time where you have to have all your bullets in the gun. Now it’s time. We are making sure we got all of our bullets. Showing our players the mindset of ‘let’s be aggressive. Let’s attack. Let’s go be who we are and what our DNA is all about.