What Went Wrong in Clemson's Loss to No. 11 LSU

Clemson Tigers on SI editor Griffin Barfield breaks down the three biggest talking points regarding Clemson's 51-10 loss to LSU in Baton Rouge on Sept. 5. View More Video Transcript 51 LSU Clemson, 10, a purely Baton Rouge beatdown with college game day and plenty of national media in attendance. Clemson, after a 7 and 6 season, failed to answer the call and are now 0-1, their fourth straight week one loss. Now, what went wrong? What did we learn? What will we take into week two? A whole lot, and I'm gonna go ahead and break it down. I'm Griffin Barfield with Clemson Tigers on SI and let's begin. I think the biggest takeaway that everybody kind of took in the first offensive and first defensive possession were Clemson were mauled by the line of scrimmage. On the offensive side of the ball with a first-time starting quarterback in Christopher Vizina and then later with Ty Reynolds, they didn't block him. Set it up some pressured passes, that pick 6 that Clemson had um in the first quarter that set up a 17 to 3 game, kind of put the game out of hand early. Vizina was pressured, and a lot of these pulling guards and schematics just frankly didn't work out. There was even a play where the left side of the offensive line completely didn't run the route that was going on, led to a Weeks blown up play. On the defensive side of the ball, Wisconsin transfer Dylan Jones had over 1000 yards and 2 touchdowns, and frankly, Charlie Weiss, the offensive coordinator for LSU, could have continued to run the ball, and the same score probably would have been happening. Again, Clemson also lost defensive tackle Marcus Strong in Oklahoma transfer. That's gonna be an interesting way to see how he returns, when he returns even. Dabo Sweeney didn't say that he would be out for the season, but you can tell that this offensive and defensive line are limited. Will I give the offensive line a little bit of slack with it being in Tiger Stadium with a decibel level of over 125? Maybe, but with a lot of new starts and a new center, let alone in Harris Sewell coming from guard to center. There was a PFF rating of no lower than 55 among the entire offensive line, and that has to improve , and that must improve if Clemson want to improve their ceiling, which doesn't look too high right now after revealing what happened in week one of the 2026 season. In the debut of Chad Morris, the offensive coordinator, frankly, he got outcoached by LSU defensive coordinator Blake Baker. You look at only 8 1st downs, they were 1 for 3 on third downs. That is the worst of the Dabo Sweeney era. So the only way to go is up for Chad Morris, and again, a lot of it came about the schema schematics, the noise, the offensive line, to be frank, a first time starting quarterback to begin the season with Azina, and then you put in Tate Reynolds, but there was a lot of bad with this Chad Morris offense, and I can't go into the detail of the all of the schematics with this short video. But Clemson has to be better at getting the ball to the playmakers, whether if it's TJ Moore, whether if it's Westco, and you think about it, Clemson had a chance to really kind of punch LSU in the teeth with that first drive interception by Ashton Hampton, but draws on 3rd down and QB draws and tunnel screens wasn't the way to go, and Blake Baker read that, and he simply outcoached Chad Morris in every aspect of the offensive and defensive side of the ball, respectively. Now, where do you go from here? And I think Morris's scheme will definitely integrate, especially going back home, playing Georgia Southern, a Sun Belt team. But you have to figure out what works and what doesn't work, especially with beginning ACC play with North Carolina. They came off of a statement win in week 0. You go to Cal, and then you're going to Miami to close out a 5-game stretch. How is that going to change the way this offense works? This will be something that I'll be looking forward to watching, especially next week, with Morris getting more familiar with the type of players that he has for this offense, let alone at quarterback, which I think that kind of a moot point right now, because The schematics were so awful about the game and the noise and the offensive line that I think that there is going to be needed a more sample size to determine who's the best quarterback going forward for Clemson . My last thought is, you know, the storylines going into this game. You knew that LSU was perhaps the evil. Clemson was the good, the order versus the chaos. LSU have nearly a $50 million even more roster when they brought in Kiffin. They got the top transfer class, including the top transfer quarterback in Sam Levitt. A lot of those Ole Miss pieces that were part of that college football playoff semifinal team for Ole Miss. And you saw that from week one, from the get-go, and that's something that Clemson's probably going to need to adapt towards moving forward. Dabo Sweeney picked and chose who he wanted on the defensive side of the ball. He got one guy on the offense, Chris Johnson Junior, but frankly , I think this game proved proves that he's gonna need to be doing more in the offseason when it comes to revamping his offenses, revamping his defenses, because you saw a lot of the same of these homegrown players and these first year players. Now, that's always going to be a good thing, being able to develop players, and that's something that Clemson's culture has really stressed itself on and saw its successes happen in years past. But in a changing landscape of college football, you saw what a good team is going to end up doing, and that's revamped through the portal and find all of that and then such. Clemson haven't done that, and this will be an interesting offseason point based off of this game versus the top SEC opponent with national championship expectations to see how they go moving forward . Now, I think a lot of questions are up in the air and week one is plenty of a talking point. But we're gonna find out a lot more about this Clemson team and what truly they need to do in the offseason and how they're behind the curve comparing to the other SEC and the Big 10 schools and the teams with national championship expectations. But that's all the time that we have here today. Clemson gonna flush a loss going to Georgia Southern at home at Memorial Stadium, the first home game of the season. Clemson will look to bounce back before beginning ACC play. And we'll have a video later this week to describe what it means and what they need to do to get a first win of the season. But until then, I'm Griffin Barfield, and I'll see you next time. Close