Buckle your seat belts, ACC defenses. Clemson's new offensive coordinator is going to run you ragged eight ways to Sunday. Chad Morris comes to the Tigers from Tulsa, where he installed a high pressure attack. After one season it ranked fifth nationally in yardage and eighth in scoring. Morris learned the secrets of the ultimate hurry-up offense from the master. As a floundering high school coach, he heard of a guy in Arkansas whose team was running circles around the competition. It took awhile, but Morris convinced the mad genius behind the offense, Gus Malzahn, to teach it to him (the full story here). But it all starts with the philosophy, which Morris explained right after he took the Clemson job:
“With a typical college football team, a touchdown is scored every 15 to 17 snaps. With some teams it may be every 12 snaps. When you look back on the number of snaps per game here (at Clemson) or any traditional huddle-up offense, you’re probably somewhere around 60 to 68… Well, if we can increase our snap total -- let’s say get it to 12 or 15 more per game. And say you just get 10 (more) points out of the deal. That’s one of the things coach (Swinney) and I talked about. I asked what would’ve ten more points per game meant to you? And he said, ‘Well, we’d be playing on Monday night’
(the national title game).
"Is there a definite goal we have? Absolutely: 80-plus plays a game. We’re gonna control the tempo of the game. We’re not gonna allow a defense to control and dictate to us how we’re gonna do things. So, yes, we’re gonna be moving at a pretty good clip.”
To emphasize the difference between his offense and a traditional one, Morris pointed out that his Tulsa team had 1008 snaps last season, while Clemson had 798.
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