Garrett Riley says his offense is in a good spot heading into opener

Riley is pleased with how his offense has progressed.

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Thu Aug 31 17:30:13 GMT-04:00 2023

CLEMSON – Garrett Riley feels like his offense is in a good spot heading into the season opener.

Clemson opens a season on Labor Day evening for the second straight year when the ninth-ranked Tigers face the Duke Blue Devils on Monday, Sept. 4. Kickoff at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, NC, is scheduled for 8 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN.

The game marks the debut of Riley’s Air Raid offense at Clemson, and he thinks the Tigers are ready to play under the lights.

“We've progressed a lot since my first few weeks here. So, I think we're in a great spot going into it,” Riley said this week. “I think we've got a lot of different guys that are capable of making a lot of plays for us. Continuity and chemistry upfront. So I think we're in a great spot going into game one. We're excited. I'm excited to see our players play. Seeing them grind every single day against that defense that we're going up against, it's been a treat. I mean, it's a lot of fun for me as a coach to sit there and watch those two units battle it out every single day. But really excited to see our guys just play under the lights and play in a real game.

“I think we've done a lot, I think we've accomplished a lot, I think we have a pretty good grasp of kind who we are at this point in time, but now it's time to go see that on the real field.”

Riley thinks his offense won’t feature just one playmaker but different people who can make the big play.

“Every offense, every team's different, so this one's certainly going to be more different than the ones I've been around,” Riley said. “But I think we've got guys that have bought into this deal since day one. There's no question about it. And I think they kind of have seen in practice so far that we have a lot of different people that can make plays. And I think that's probably the biggest thing of, if you ask me today what our identity is, I think we're pretty well-rounded and have a lot of different guys that can make some things happen. So, our guys have certainly bought into that.”

What did he learn about his offense during fall camp?

“Probably just more about, ‘What can our guys handle?’ I mean, fall camp, we had a lot of new guys here compared to what we had in spring football,” Riley said. “So that was probably the biggest thing for me is just kind of figuring out these new people, how they fit; guys that were hurt that were back in fall camp, actually seeing them rep and just seeing how we think we can piece them together. And put the best 11 out there for us offensively, and who are those people and what can they handle? That was kind of the early thing that we needed to iron out as much as we could there in fall camp.”