I’ve been saying it for weeks but apparently it didn’t register among Tennessee Volunteer fans wishing it weren’t true.
Tennessee Vols Offensive Coordinator Dave Clawson
Dave Clawson, the Vols first-year offensive coordinator, is overmatched each week, lacking the prerequisite skills needed to effectively design and implement a working game plan.
So far this season Tennessee’s offense is among the worst in the nation and is easily the worst in the program’s vaunted history.
While many will point to head coach Phil Fulmer as being the reason for Tennessee’s 2-4 start, Clawson hasn’t done anything to solve the Volunteers offensive struggles, in fact, he’s helped create them.
That doesn’t exactly bode well for the person who was hired to replace David Cutcliffe, Tennessee’s most successful offensive coordinator in school history.
Clawson’s inability to make in-game adjustments and his lack of originality has limited – and to some extent effectively eliminated – one of the Vols most promising offensive players.
Tight end Brandon Warren transferred to Tennessee from Florida State this season to be near his ailing mother.
Warren, from Alcoa, TN, signed with the Seminoles in 2006 and was named a freshman All-American, catching 28 passes for 301 yards and a touchdown as Florida State’s starting tight end.
One would think a player of Warren’s ability could provide an immediate impact on a weak offensive team that is in desperate need of help. Yet Warren has only five catches for 65 yards in six games for the Vols this season.
Earlier this week Clawson addressed Warren’s lack of playing time and limited touches saying, “packages have been designed for Warren the past several weeks, but the offense hasn’t stayed on the field long enough to make anybody happy.”
Immediately after Tennessee’s loss to Georgia on Saturday, Clawson was asked why Warren didn’t see any action.
“We had a special package for (Warren) today. But, again, we’d only run 34 plays halfway through the fourth quarter. When your play count is that low, it’s hard to involve anybody with any consistency.”
Is Clawson honestly suggesting that there has to be a set number of plays run before he utilizes a former freshman All-American?
Regarding the “special package” Clawson referred to in his comments, perhaps it’s the type of package that can only be used after the Vols run 55 plays and find themselves down 45-7.
Tennessee Vols Tight End Brandon Warren
Clawson’s remarks offend my sensibilities and insult my intelligence. In all the years I’ve been associated with this game, never have I heard an offensive coordinator suggest he couldn’t utilize one of the team’s most gifted players unless a certain number of plays were run.
Warren is the type of player that can create matchup problems for opposing defenses while drawing attention away from the wide receivers. Anyone with a modicum of common sense would recognize that and put a player like Warren to good use.
But apparently Clawson can’t figure that out. Perhaps the Georgia Bulldogs should wait until they’ve run 35 plays before inserting Knowshon Moreno. That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?
Just like Clawson claiming he can’t work Warren into the offense because the Vols hadn’t run enough plays. That’s really stupid.
When Fulmer hired Clawson earlier this year, he described his coaching style as one that utilizes the available talent to maximize success.
It was said that Clawson’s philosophy focuses on getting individual playmakers more touches rather than sticking to a rigidly-defined system.
That seems to contradict what’s happened so far in 2008. Clawson’s offense hasn’t utilized his available talent, namely Warren, nor has he focused on getting more touches to the team’s playmakers.
It’s a sad commentary when your offensive philosophies aren’t being put into practice, but it sure would be nice if they were.
This whole experiment with Clawson has been a failure. He is clearly nowhere near qualified to coordinate an offense for an SEC program and the sooner this act comes to an end the better.
Special packages? The only special package they need to score points. By any means necessary!
I respectfully disagree with your primary assertion in the article. there are a number of reasons play counts can dictate a playcallers ability to execute certain ambitions, to name just a few:
1. if there’s a smaller pie, there are smaller slices to go around
2. if an offense is running fewer plays than normal, it is likely indicative of being caught off schedule (2nd & 3rd and longs), which may not lend itself to certain pages of the playbook.
3. certain packages are best used in situations which may not present themselves in a small playcount game (no red zone trips, few late-drive scenarios, no 2-minute drill, no opportunities for playaction).
If you look at Dave Clawson’s entire coaching track record, you will should quickly observe a fairly obvious pattern of a 1-2 year period in which he implements his system, before it begins to be widly successful. Its yet to be seen whether his successes of yesteryear can be replicated at such a high level as the SEC, however the same skeptical tone was quite popular at his early struggles at each stop.
this is one of the most pathetic articles I’ve ever read. Clawson was hamstrung from Fulmer from day 1, case closed. The guy is brilliant and was a winner wherever he went before he got the short shrift from Fulmer at UT. The one thing you could fault him for is in hitching his wagon to Fulmer’s star.
Again, idiotic points.
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