Joining us now from The Clemson Insider. He's also the host of a great podcast you should listen to every single week to Believe in Clemson Football podcast, It's the great Will vander Ward. What's happening, Bud?
Hey Man? What's going on?
Man? It's all you look, last time we talked a couple of weeks ago, Clemson was, you know, coming off a hard one against Georgia there in terms of the expectations being what they were. Since then, it's been all systems go on offense, and let's just focus in on what happened last week as Clemson came out against an NC State team that has a lot of talent, and boy, right off the bat, just another huge first half.
Will, Yeah, they again they just looked good offensively. And also, you know, give the first team defense credit too, because all they did was go out and get a three and out, a turnover, turnover three and out and get the ball back four times for the offense, and so you know, that's what you want to you know, because I tell everybody, Yeah, the offense getting the twenty eight points and thirty five points back to back weeks in the first quarter, but you got to get the ball back.
You can't just you know what I'm saying, You just don't get you know, the football and.
Then get it again.
It's not make them take them yea. You know, So you get a little bit of the credit to the offense, I mean to the defense as well for getting the football back to its offense knowing they got the hot end right now. And that's what's been been going on, and that's why you're seeing Clemson just really just this confidence this offense has in itself. It's just at a different level right now. Probably you need to go back probably twenty nineteen. I even say probably even more twenty eighteen.
It's confident they are because I don't know if I was the offense, even though it looked good at times in twenty nineteen, I don't think it looked this good for two games. So we'll see, you know, as they as they keep going along and they can keep up this pace. But right now they look really good. The last two weeks.
I think a lot of credit will goes to Garret Riley. I think who's the coordinator that's been under fire. And obviously so you earn your reputation in football because your performance reflects upon that, But I think Georgia is a high bar to meet in the first week of a season, and there were some struggles last year. But you saw this offense come to life in the second half of that Bowl game against Kentucky. And look, I think the
dirt raid offense looks awfully good right now. Credit to Garrett Riley for coordinating this whole thing.
Oh absolutely, he's I mean, but Dabo brought this up to the day we're talking to him and he said that part of why Riley advice to talking about, you know, the way he's calling plays and stuff, Well, it kind of goes twofold. He's got confidence in his offense right now, and he's got confidence in his quarterback. And so when a coordinator has confidence in his players that he's going to call plays the way it's meant to be called and run that offense the way it's meant to be run,
that's what you're seeing right now. And so people can understand you didn't see that last year out of the offense. They just didn't run. They were still learning the system, they were trying to grow as players themselves. They had a young offensive line a year ago, remember, and they had a young quarterback first year starting. Well, now you get year two and you're seeing the difference right of
this team. And then you're seeing the difference in Garrett Riley calling the plays because his quarterbacks going out there slinging it, his wide receivers are catching everything, his offensive lines blocking is probably at the best level they have in a long time at Clemson's absolutely, and the wide receivers are blocking and solo the tight ends, and so he's got full confidence that, hey, I can call this
play and know that it's going to get executed. And I think that's the biggest difference in what Garrett Riley is right now as compared to what he.
Was last year's to play caller chatting with Will Van Dervoord right now he's from the Clemson Insider dot com and Will you mentioned the offensive line. Look, give them a lot of credit too, because they're working hand in hand with this offensive coordination. Matt Luke deserves a lot
of credit for that. And then guys like philm maffa, who was a little bit banged up in that game one hundred and seven yards on seven in the Blood win against inn C State, And then they have found themselves as you rode here for the Clemson Insider, a great backup plan in Jay Haynes, who is getting a chance to shine. It's not just Haynes, there's other guys now,
young players getting their shot. With these margins growing so wide in the first half, that's great for depth down the stretch as you build your team to what we hope to be. If you're a Clemson fan, a playoff contender.
Absolutely, you know, I think people forget those years you had Karna set and Russian for sixteen hundred yards. You also had Tavian Feaster and LYNDJ. Dixon Russian for six seven hundred yards. So that's big because what you do is you got to You're getting experience for your other running backs as well, and now you can use them.
They're getting valuable reps to get first team defenses, and you can use that on film what they do good, what they don't do well, and you can you know, you show them, you can coach them up on that. Those are all things that benefit the benef when you get other guys into the game and playing and getting those big leads and doing that is beneficial down the road from a depth standpoint, and you start what you
start doing, and you start building your depth. You want to know why Clinston was so good, they're in a six year stretch. Well, go back to twenty fifteen and sixteen, John, when they weren't that good on defense, right, But their
first team was really good, but their backups weren't. But when they got the situations where they could they were blowing people out and they could play other people, they went ahead and did And did it cost them statistically, yes, But later on a year when they needed guys to make plays, guys were ready to make plays. And then when you go and look at the seventeen and eighteen teams,
how good they were. You know why they were so good because they played in fifteen and sixteen when they were freshmen and sophomore and by the time they were juniors and seniors, they were ready for the big stage. And so it allowed Clinton to go on the big run that it went on for six years. And that's kind of what Davo's doing now with this team. And you know, this team has the potential to go far. I think, and and I like the makeup of this team.
And you know, we we said that at the beginning of the year that this team had a chance to uh to be pretty good and Dad both thought they could be pretty good. And so far through three games, we're kind of seeing that in these last two weeks especially, And and go back to the Georgia game. And I know some Georgia or South Carolina fans r out there like, yeah,
they got beat thirty four to three Georgia. But if you go back and watch that Georgia game, see an offensive line that didn't give up a single sack to one of the best defensive fronts of the country. And you saw a quarterback who at that time wasn't trusting in his line. And I think what you said. Difference in the last two weeks is Gary Riley has gone in there and said, listen, look at look at your
offensive line. They're busting their butt. They you've got a perfect pocket, stay within the system, trust your offensive line, do your checkdowns, and you'll you'll find the open guys. And that's what we've seen the last couple of weeks out of this offense.
Let's talk about Peter Woods, who, look, his utilization was questioned by a lot of pundits early on playing him out on the edge, and I've heard you on your podcast and other forums talk about, you know, the odd fronts that we should expect Clemson to be playing this year, and certainly you're going to see that with Wes Goodwin's defense. How's his health right now? And do you expect a different type of utilization moving forward? Do you think you'll
kick him inside a little more? Do you think they're comfortable playing him a little wider as they have been.
I think, you know, first of all, I won't see if he plays. He's day to day. I'll be surprised if he plays this week because I think Clemson can play, can win this game without him this week. So I'll
be surprised if we see him this week. Understanding the whole the way Dabo does things, Like last week, Kyler Brown was available to play, he dressed, but he didn't play, right, Peter Woods didn't even dress, Okay, So I think what you're gonna see is you're going to see this week, maybe Peter Wood's dresses but probably doesn't plays, just available in case they need them. I think that's the way the coaches want to go about it, kind of bring
them back a little bit slow. You know, you don't want to mess around with knee injury, right, I mean, you want to make sure he's totally comfortable and get back out there on the field. So I'll be surprised if you see him this week. Now, I don't know one hundred certainty, but we'll see. But what that does, it's allowed. When you saw kay deanhoff you saw aj Hoffler, you saw Jaheen Lawson. All three of those guys got to play and they played well, and Davilo talked about that
and they got valuable, valuable snaps. And so now when Peter Woods this does come back, you can do different things with him and you don't necessarily have to play him at defensive end all the time. Now maybe you can move him in sometimes. Ye uh, So that there's different ways they can use him when they when they get back, when he gets back to full strength and
they use him. But you know, they really like what they see now those young defensive ends and what they can do, and you know the experience they definitely need and they're getting valuable game rep. And that's what it's all about, my friends.
Nothing like depth, and we can build it as they are. Why building early leads and early in the season. By doing that, it comes in great handy coming down the stretch. As you know. Will Vanervoor, Clemson Insider quick thoughts on Stanford. What should we expect? This is unusual matchup and usual times in the ACC. What's Stanford all about? Just a quick glimpse at Clemson's opponent on Saturday.
Oh, well, they're well coached football team. If you go and watch them, you see exactly what Dabo's talking about. Troy Taylor's day coach there, He's done a great job and they were a well coached team with gig Shaw as well, right if you were heard with those teams. I mean, so now they've lacked talent and that's where
the issue is. But what you saw last week we get Syracuse is if you don't play sound football and you don't do what you got to do on your side of it, they're very capable of beating you because they're not going to beat themselves for the most part. So Clinton's gonna have to play very good. They've got to play at a high level. You know, when I look at this team that defensively, they're gonna stop the run,
They're gonna make the one dimensional. So they're gonna want they're gonna want to take Phil MafA out of the game. They held Syracuse to twenty six yards rushing last week. Now, I think Clemson can run the football better than Syracuse. Syracuse hasn't run the ball that well all season anyway, So I think Clemson can probably run the football a little bit more. But the game plan is gonna be to eliminate Phil MafA and not have him beat them.
So they're gonna want to put it in the hands of kay Klebnick and those wide receivers and so, as Dabo said, they got to make plays. They're gonna have opportunities on the outside that make some plays, and so they're gonna have to do that. And then on the other side, if you flip it, you know Ashton Daniels, he's a running quarterback. He's a guy that likes to get out on the edges. Kind of spread him out because he's not a tall guy. He's only six two to fifteen, But you know, he's a guy that he's
very athletic. He can move around in the pocket, he can run the football a long way, he's got good speed. So they're gonna have to figure out ways not to make maybe contain their rush lanes and passing situations and also kind of set the edge in running situations because they're gonna run a lot of RPOs with him and things like that. So you know he's going to be a challenge. And they got this wide receiver named Elick a miner and maybe saying his name the last name
for but six, two, two ten. This guy can go up and just get the ball at any point. If you go watch any sports center. In the last two years, he's making some unbelievable athletic catch. Last year he went off on Notre Dame. I don't know if you guys remember that, but he went off on them last year and last week had a great game as well. And so he's a very dynamic wide receiver if he did
puns of troubles. They got a couple of other guys too, So they're a good football team that you know a lot of people weren't predicting much out of them, but
understand who their coach is, understand his background. Way they're going to play football, and so they're going to come in here and you know they're going to hope to get a win and As I mentioned about the Ashton Daniels quarterback, he's from Atlanta, so he's gonna have a huge family here as his dad actually played for the Georgia Bulldogs and played against Clemson back in nineteen ninety five. And so they're gonna have a big contingency here. Puntson
a Stanford fans. So you know, I'm not saying there's going to be four or five thousand, but you know they'll be represented. I think a little bit. It's going to be cool to see a team from the West Coast. Only the second time, guys, in the history of Death Valley, that a team from the West Coast is coming to Clemson. The last time it happened was Long Beach State back in nineteen.
Ninety I was at that game. Okay, so here's a fun fact. You bring up Long Beach State. That was a rain game. I remember it well. That was my first ever trip to Death Valley and my good friend Rob Bartholemey who lived in our neighborhood. His dad Bob took us loaded up in the Dodge caravan with the wood grain paint stripe on the side. That was my first trip down there. I can't believe you just mentioned that that brought back memories and who was.
The head coach if you remember for them?
Uh for long but oh it was Uh what's George Allen?
George George Allen Pro Football Hall of Fame coach of the Washington Redskins and also with the defensive coordinator doing those great years with the Rams, had the fabulous four.
Yes, yeah, memories. It was raining that day, right, I distinctly remember a rainstorm that day, So.
That's good for you to remember. You probably are right. I can't remember that so many of these, but I wasn't there that day. Okay, I'm gonna lend it to you on that one. My friend I went to Long Beach State.
I went to Long Beach State versus Clemson, and will Van DeVore didn't print the T shirts. Right now, Falcos Falco's got a Steelers question for you. Go ahead, Trey.
Yeah, Well, I mostly just want to check your poults on this team. You know, you're one of the more grounded kind of people to cover this team obviously three and zero, But how are you feeling about the offense right now? Especially with Justin Fields under center. I know we talked about earlier in the season, before it started. This would be Russ's job, and obviously he's dealing with
calf injury. Do you foresee him coming back and stepping in and taking those reins away from Justin Do you ride the hot hand if you're Mike Tomlin and what is what does Russ add to this this offense? If anything, if he does come in and take over, well, I.
Think, first of all, I think you do ride the hot hand right now, so they're going Justin Field's gonna play this week. I think if he wins and gets off to the flooridah start. I think even if Russell's back, and I think you know, Russell's got a calf injury. Generally, yeah, calf injury is gonna take about four weeks to heal, and so I'm expecting by week five as Russe will really be ready to play and go, and so that'll
be the game against Dallas. So you know, I think probably Justin Fields if they win this week against the Colts, Justin Fields definitely will start that game against the Cowboys. I think if he continues to play like he's doing, you know, I don't see a problem with it. I mean, he's making good decisions. He's not he's not putting the ball in harm's way. I mean, even the interception last week that wasn't on him. His receiver, you know, popped the ball up in the air. The ball was in
his hands. I was on justin field. His progressions have been really good. I think he's made good throws when he makes them. A touchdown pass to Austin was was a thing of beauty, the way he set it up and having pulled the safety off and was able to get the ball there. I mean, you know, I think he's in a different place that he does add an element with his legs, and I think that it's helped
the Steelers in a couple occasions already this year. I don't know if Russell Wilson can make those plays right now, especially with the cap injury. I doubt he can, so I think that's the definite element. But what Wilson brings is the more of a passing attack that I think he can get the ball out quicker and probably be a little more decisive, even though I saw just and get more decisive against the Chargers.
Yeah, he's grown.
He had to because he had to do it. If he didn't, they would have been problems because they're so good on the defensive side of the ball. But he wasn't that decisive in the other two games. So I think with just with Russell Wilson, you get a more decisive passer who's going to put the ball where it needs to be and go right where it needs to be. And that's the difference you get with an experience quarterlick like Russell Wilson over Justin Fields. But hey, if Justin
Key's playing like he's doing, he's gonna gain confidence. And just like we're seeing with Kate Clubnick at Clemson, you know that confidence is going to continue to grow and he's going to get better and better. I can't complain with the way he's played to this point. To be honest with you, I'm not a Justin Fields fans. I told you guys that, but he's playing well. He's a Steelers quarterback. I'm a huge Steelers fan, so I'm supporting
them obviously, and I'll tell you that though. When you've got a defense that good, and I forget and they might be the best defense Steelers defense I've ever seen, and that's counting. That's counting. The ones from two thousand and eight, nine and ten and twelve range with Torod Palamalo and those guys. This defense is like, I mean, I haven't seen a defense is good in the NFL in years. I'm talking like it's been decades probably since
we've seen a defense is good. They potentially have a chance to be as good as any defense in the history of this league.
Yeah, it's crazy that it feels like there's playmakers on every level of that defense, and not only on every level, but even the depth that they have back there.
It feels like whoever.
Comes in and fills that void if somebody goes down or needs a rest, that defense doesn't really drop in quality. Now, your thoughts on the three and oh? Is this a I'm trying to think of the way to word this, like, is this should we be excited that they're three and oh?
Or is this one of those where it's like, Okay, hold on, pump the Brakes, look at the people that they look at the teams that they've played, barring the Chargers, which going into this game, this last game, the Chargers, I think we're number one or number two defense in the league, and we were able to put up twenty points on them. But how do you feel about the outlook of this team going forward from what you've seen so far with this three? And oh, is this something
in this sustainable? Not that they're going to win every single game, but do you see this being a Steelers team that could be a contender at least in the playoffs?
Also as a Chargers team that led the NFL and rushing after a yeah three averaging about eight yards of carry, Steelers held them over two yards of carries. Yeah, so you know, and so yeah on both sides and the like. You said that they've been very good defensively. Now, I think Bosa got hurt the second game, second player the sea of the game, but he didn't play much last week either, So you can't say most is the reason
why their defense has been so good. I think it's more been what Jalen Ramsley in that back end has been doing to people. So you know, I think they're I think you still pump the brakes because it's only week three. I'm a blue big believer that you know who your team is after week five. I think that fifth game is generally tells you who your team is. So the Steelers got the Colts this week and they
host the Cowboys after that. If they win those two games and they're five and zero after that game, that I think you really start looking at this Pittsburgh team as a serious contender in the NFL this year, definitely in the AFC because that defense, if they continue to play at the level they're playing, that that defense gives Pittsburgh a chance to win no matter who they're playing. Wait, I don't think that there's not a There's not an offense in the NFL that they can't stop, and that
includes Patrick Mahomes. So you know, I think you know with the way t J. Watt, if anybody watched the Steelers, that that guy's on a mission. He's got a point to prove. He is a game wrecker. He doesn't have to get sacks to be a game wrecker. He's doing it in all other pastes and we watch him play. He's all over the field.
It's taking it personal. With Miles Garret getting the flowers last year. We'll see what happens the rest of the year. I will Van der Voart before we let you go. I do hear on your podcast believe in Clemson football. I think I heard correct that you're going to two Steelers games this year? Is that right?
That's what I'm going to? Three three two? Yeah. I went to the Atlanta game to start the season, and I flew out the denser and went to the Denver game because Clinton was off that week, I was able to That's right.
So, oh you go, how was that that? That must have been that must have been cool as hell?
Oh that was that was really cool? And about man, there's about thirty thousand so always the Denver fans. He said, there weren't as many Steeler fans as there normally is, which the Steelers, and I was like, my goodness because there was a ton of us. But uh, but then I'm also going to go when Crimson plays Pitt and weekend the Steelers are hosting the Ravens.
Oh my goodness.
So I'll be going to that game the next day.
The dream season for Will vandervolt so far as man, we'll see you down there.
Let's make it three and there you go.
We'll see you down to Tigertown coming up. Will Van Dervoord will be covering that game this weekend between Clemson and Stanford for the Clemson Insider and don't forget to catch his podcast, Believe in Clemson Football, Will You're the best man?
John? Thanks, but I appreciate you.