Streeter Wants Players to Understand ‘Big Picture’ of What Tigers Want to Do On Offense

For the first time since the 2014 Russell Athletic Bowl, someone new is running the offense and calling the plays at Clemson.

With Tony Elliott now the head coach at Virginia, Brandon Streeter assumes control of the offense, after spending the past couple of years as the Tigers’ passing game coordinator.

While no major wholesale changes are expected with Streeter in charge, there are some things that he is doing differently. One of those things has been making sure each player not only knows what they’re doing, but also why they’re doing it.

 “I think that it’s very, very important for players to understand the why and the big picture of what we’re doing,” Streeter said before the team went on spring break. “I know that sounds kind of generic but there’s a lot of guys that you assume they know why we’re doing it and they really don’t.”

“So I think our coaches have done a great job of really explaining the big picture to our players. And when they when you see their eyes like ‘oh, that’s why we’re doing it this way,’ or ‘that’s why we’re teaching it this way.’ So just being very detailed in the teaching part.”

Under Dabo Swinney, the Tigers have fielded some of the most explosive offenses in the country. A trend that started with Chad Morris back in 2011 and continued under Elliott.

However, a season ago, Clemson’s offense was anything but explosive. While Streeter isn’t looking to overhaul the offense, he does plan on making some minor adjustments to suit his coaching style.

“There’s stuff that we’ve tweaked in the run game and the passing game,” Streeter said. “Not major things, but there’s been some. You go back seven years since I’ve been here, there’s been some ridiculous production on the offensive side of the ball. So there’s got to be some give and take. Yes, there’s plenty we got to improve at. But the other side of it is, you don’t want to try to fix something that’s not broken either. So there’s kind of that fine line.”

With so many new faces on the coaching staff, one of the biggest things is getting the players to buy in, and according to Streeter, that’s exactly what’s been happening.

“Anytime you have a new start to something, or like you said a fresh start with new people, new faces, I mean, it’s something different,” he said. “So when you have something different, there’s usually some excitement to it. Our guys, starting in the bowl game, as far as that first opportunity that I had and the coaches had, I mean, they responded right away. So it was very clear to me that hey, they’re gonna respond to how I coach and respond to what we want as a staff. And that’s fun. That’s the first step.”