Clemson co-Offensive Coordinator Tony Elliott is nothing but proud of his offense Saturday night as they ended the regular season undefeated.
In the second-ranked Tigers, 56-35 victory, Elliot’s offense totaled 744 yards and had 38 first downs. They rushed for 351 yards and threw for 393, the first 300-300 combo of the season.
Elliott has all the confidence his offense is ready to succeed in the postseason. Clemson’s next challenge will be at Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium where the Tigers will play for the chance to win their fourth ACC Championship in a row.
Elliott on Christian Wilkins’ touchdown
“I think he just means a tremendous amount to the entire team. The big guys like him up front because that’s one of their own. Even though he’s on the defensive side of the ball, that’s a big guy touching the ball. They take pride in that. Overall, Christian has been unbelievable player, unbelievable leader for our program. He makes us better as coaches. You see a young man that graduates in two and half years and decides to come back. He for goes a lot of money and he’s up for one of the biggest awards in college football. It’s just a testament to who he is.”
Elliott on the offensive shootout
“I wouldn’t say I was surprised because it’s a rivalry game. We say it all the time. You can throw the records out. They were going to come to play. They’ve got some really good players on offense. They’ve got a really challenging scheme. They weren’t going to quit. For us, it’s our job to have the mentality to go out and score every single time we touch the ball. We wanted to help the defense by making sure that when we had our opportunities that we put points on the board.”
Elliott on the offensive effort
“It’s a team game and great teams find a way to win. We need to score some points. That’s our job. That’s what we focuses on. Obviously on defense, Brent (Venables) is an unbelievable defensive coordinator with unbelievable defensive personnel. They were going to bounce back and come back with their hats on fire. Tonight, we had to do a job and that was to score points.”
Elliott on the postseason plan
“I talk about it all the time on offense. We want to be balanced with every defensive structure. A team is going to have a game plan on what they want to stop, but for us we are going to take what’s there and find a way to win. Tonight, we were able to be balanced, run the ball and throw the ball. Probably didn’t throw the ball down the field as much as we have in the past, but we found a rhythm in the passing game. We were able to take advantage of some of the balls over the middle. We didn’t quite have the balls down the field like we have in the past, but again that’s just the credit of the offensive staff. Being able to see what the defense is doing. We make adjustments to our plans so we can put our players in a position to be successful.”
Elliott on Adam Choice scoring three touchdowns in his final game in the Valley
“He’s just unbelievable. I can’t say enough good things about him. He has unbelievable character, and he’s an unbelievable worker. He’s so unselfish. We take some time to make sure that teammates know how we feel about each other and when people stand up and talk about Adam Choice that’s all they talk about is how unselfish he is. How he comes to work every single day. He’s in a loaded back field and might not get the amount of carries that he wants, but he doesn’t complain. He comes to work every single day. For him to go out and have three touchdowns in his final game in the Valley…I’m just so happy for him.”