Snap Count Review – Georgia Tech & Furman

Clemson released their first official stat report for the season, giving us two games’ worth of data to review. Like last year, I’ll be tallying up the numbers and providing a light analysis of what we’re seeing throughout the season. I love doing this series because it affords us a bird’s-eye view of how playing time is being spread amongst the team; snap counts can be noteworthy with how much Dabo usually likes to rotate his depth players.

All snap counts come from the official Clemson report found here; numbers do not necessarily denote official plays, but rather non-special-team snaps.

This is DJ’s team for now – he has earned it with his play through the first two games. Cade will get more reps as the year goes on but expect DJ to continue holding the majority of these reps if he keeps playing at the level he has so far.

Running back is a little more evenly spread out. While Shipley definitely holds the starting role, Pace and Mafah are close behind him and should make for a three-headed beast all year in the ground game.

The WR numbers should be very interesting to watch over the next few weeks with Antonio Williams’ quality play and the arrival of Adam Randall. Both these freshmen may end up leading some of the older receivers in reps when the season is finished. Williams is already second on the team in receiving yards, trailing only Beaux Collins (who may be the alpha receiver in 2022).

Ken Ruinard / USA Today Network / USA TODAY NETWORK

Blake Miller is leading all offensive players through the first two games for most snaps – all Clemson can hope for is that this baptism by fire will pay dividends quickly to help the line gel into a stronger unit. For comparison – after week 2 in 2021, freshman OL Marcus Tate had 99 snaps.

With Xavier Thomas being held out for the start of the season, KJ Henry and Myles Murphy have taken the bulk of the starting snaps, although Justin Mascoll and Kevin Swint have gotten plenty of reps as well. Thomas should split starting duties with one of Murphy or Henry when he debuts this year.

Defensive tackle is a position of wealth this year, and even though Tyler Davis was held out against Furman the line had several qualified bodies to rotate in. Bresee and Orhorhoro lead the tackles through two weeks but there is a lot ahead of them. Hopefully, the injury bug doesn’t bite too hard this year and we can see a full season’s worth of Bresee and Davis dominating together.

Welcome Barrett Carter to the stage – he leads all defensive players for snaps right now and has 11 tackles already, just behind Trenton Simpson’s team-leading 16 tackles. These linebackers are playing fast, hitting hard, and doing an admirable job thus far. There are areas to improve upon, of course, but this is a quality start for the group. Junior Sergio Allen announced he was leaving the program on Monday; it is a competitive bunch vying for snaps at linebacker right now.

Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

Nate Wiggins leads the cornerbacks for snaps despite not starting in either of the two games. Current starters Sheridan Jones and Fred Davis are pacing the rest of the corners, with Malcolm Greene and the freshmen trailing their numbers.

Outside of Mukuba, safety play has not been what we hoped for entering the year. It’s early though, and as with everything else, there is plenty of time to adjust and tweak things. This team will continue to grow and build on what they are learning with each game.

It’s too early to make any sweeping conclusions, but we now have a rough idea of what this team is capable of. I still think they could make the playoff, and with Marshall’s triumphant win over Notre Dame, I could see this Clemson team making a perfect regular season run.