Clemson Football put in their best effort of the season against Notre Dame, and it yielded their best outcome yet.
The defense was outstanding against the Irish, but the eye-popping statistic was provided by Phil Mafah.
With usual starting running back Will Shipley sidelined in concussion protocol, Mafah got the start and made the most of it. He rushed for 186 yards on 36 carries with two touchdowns. He averaged 5.2 yards per carry and had a long of 41 yards.
There has been a debate among Clemson fans about which running back is “better” for a couple of seasons now. Mafah has had ardent supporters. Those supporters have been vocal this season, despite the reality that neither back was having a particularly good 2023 campaign.
Shipley hasn’t found a lot of success this season, and the continued favoritism towards him in the snap count has emboldened Mafah supporters who believe the backs should be much closer to equal carries.
Even having missed the Notre Dame game, Shipley still leads Mafah in carries for the season. Before the game against the Irish, Shipley had 112 attempts and Mafah had 73, which is about a 60%-40% split.
This ratio was not egregious in my opinion. 60%-40% is not crazy, and as I already commented, I didn’t think either Shipley or Mafah had done anything to write home about in 2023. I would agree, however, that Mafah had been slightly more effective than Shipley.
I was also of the opinion that it wasn’t even close to their fault that neither was getting production. The run blocking by Clemson’s offensive line has been very disappointing this season. Neither back has had holes to hit most of the time. The line has gotten very little push.
There have been injuries, most notably the loss of Walker Parks, but considering this line was very experienced and expected to have overall depth, the results through the NC State game were underwhelming. It didn’t seem like things would improve.
Then something unfortunate happened. Starting left guard Marcus Tate was injured and lost for most of the rest of the season. Colin Sadler, who had split time with Tristan Leigh at left tackle, would be unavailable against Notre Dame. The Tigers would be playing relatively inexperienced players against the Irish defense which had pushed them around in 2022.
Then something unfortunate turned into something unexpected. The line suddenly was playing much better against the Irish than they had all season. They didn’t become All-Americans overnight, but there was improvement.
Was it that the players filling in were better than the regular players? Perhaps, but a few sharp eyes spotted a notable difference last Saturday.
One of the major changes with the system of new offensive coordinator Garrett Riley was that the offensive linemen would run stunts and pull from one side to the other much more often than they had in Clemson’s old offense. Morgan Thomas had highlighted several times on X this season where the line was having significant difficulty with stunts and pulls. They just didn’t take well to the new blocking scheme.
