The Clemson offensive line did not live up to expectations last season.
The Tigers lost four starters from the 2019 team, which in and of itself, is hard enough to overcome. But trying to overcome that in the middle of a pandemic, when everything had been shut down, made it next to impossible. Especially when most of the depth the coaches were counting on were underclassmen.
“It’s hard to get better at OL virtually,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “Unfortunately, you know, it just is what it is. And there’s a difference between working out and training. There’s a big difference between that. You know, I work out but I ain’t training. That’s a whole different deal.”
“We just we missed all of April, all of May, all of June, from being able to train,” Swinney said. “We had guys working and doing everything they could and then you come back in July and, you know, but it was the same for everybody.”
The offensive line was the position that needed the most development last offseason, and the Tigers just weren’t able to do the things required to develop young, offensive linemen.
“But unfortunately for us, we had one position, a critical position on our team where it’s the position that needs the most development. And so much of that comes in the offseason, in that weight room training properly, and the skills and drills.”
Swinney was offering no excuses, though. The Tigers’ head coach noted that his team faced the same difficulties each and every other team across the nation faced. They were just faced with the unfortunate circumstance of needing to develop a lot of young offensive linemen and weren’t able to get in that necessary offseason work.
“Was the same for everybody,” Swinney said. “Just so happened it was a time for us where we really needed to have that developmental time and we just didn’t get it. We didn’t have the type of depth that you need. So a lot of snaps, you know, we just weren’t as good as we as we needed to be at the end of the season.”
