On a splendid spring day for football, Clemson’s White team edged the Orange, 20-13, Saturday afternoon in Death Valley.

It was fitting Clemson’s White team won with an interception return by an early enrollee, freshman Khalil Barnes.

Clemson’s defense?

It’s sensational and it is ready for fall camp and another run at the ACC championship and College Football Playoff.

The linebackers are the best in America. The defensive line controlled the game, constantly pressuring whoever was under center for Clemson. The secondary is loaded, with Nate Wiggins playing like an All-American and Andrew Mukuba locking down anything in front of him. The early enrollees in the freshmen class, led by Barnes and 5-star tackle Peter Woods, were everywhere Saturday– with Woods even blocking a kick to keep the game tied in the 4th quarter. The Tigers are College Football Playoff good on defense.

Then again, when have they not been over the past decade?

That’s why the real story Saturday was the offense — or lack of offense.

That’s a troubling trend in Clemson, and for all the sizzle of the Garrett Riley hire, there wasn’t much to separate Saturday’s plodding performance from the stuff that got Brandon Streeter fired in January.

The winning team scored just 20 points, and that was with a defensive touchdown. The truth? At times on Saturday, it looked like Clemson will struggle to score more than 13 offensive points against quality opponents this season.

That type of pedestrian offense wasn’t what brought 50,000-plus, the 5th-largest crowd in Clemson Spring game history, to Death Valley on Saturday, and despite the chamber of commerce weather, it wasn’t the draw of a pontoon afternoon on Lake Hartwell, either.

With 5-star Cade Klubnik firmly ensconced as the starter, the fans came to see the new offensive coordinator and signs of life on a side of the football that has ailed the Tigers since Trevor Lawrence left for Jacksonville.

They didn’t get it, and that’s concerning.

It’s concerning no matter how optimistic Dabo Swinney sounded on a live mic all afternoon for ACC Network and the Clemson faithful.

“That’s great defense,” Swinney said throughout four tepid quarters in the glorious spring South Carolina sunshine.

It was, except it was also poor offense. Things can, and often are, two things.

“It looked like the ball was thrown right on time– that’s just a great play,” Swinney said of the Christopher Vizzina out route read easily and taken to the house by Barnes for the winning score. Perhaps, but it’s one thing to throw the ball on time, and another to throw to the wrong guy, which Vizzina did multiple times in the 4th quarter, tossing 2 interceptions.

Klubnik wasn’t much better. He started strong, connecting on 12-of-17 throws for 142 yards. He finished miserably, completing just 6 passes in the second half to close 18-for-33 for 190 yards, just a 5.8 yard per attempt average. For perspective on that figure, consider Klubnik’s Orange Bowl performance against Tennessee, when the freshman managed 5.92 per attempt in his first start, a lopsided loss to the Vols.

Not improving on the putrid Orange Bowl number in a Spring game? That’s cause for consternation, even if Swinney, as always, is reluctant to say so out loud.

It isn’t just Klubnik, even if Clemson’s path to another College Football Playoff starts and ends with him.

There’s not enough explosiveness on offene, and save a grown man or two from Phil Mafah, there aren’t guys who frighten you. Clemson’s longest offensive play was a 24-yard pass to tight end Banks Pope. No receiver caught a pass that gained 20 yards or more.

Spring game disclaimers aside, does anyone think that’s good enough?

The book on Clemson since Lawrence’s departure has been that the talent remains tremendous, the defense is championship tough and strong, but the offense is a sticking point.

For those who look at one position only, look deeper. Opponents and scouts are.

As one NFL front office executive put it at the NFL Combine, “The only thing missing at Clemson is the explosive offense they had in the championship years. It’s not just quarterback. Where’s the (Travis) Etienne type? Where’s the guy who is always open on third down, like Hunter Renfrow? Where’s the Justyn Ross or Sammy Watkins — that guy no one can cover without safety help? They don’t have him or they aren’t developing him. But it’s an organizational issue now, not just a quarterback issue.”

A veteran ACC defensive coordinator I spoke to this spring agreed.

“Clemson is still the favorite in the ACC because that defense can stop basically anyone in this league when they need to get a stop, OK? But they aren’t frightening anymore on offense. Their best weapon is Klubnik, and right now, he’s not ready to be great. Will Riley help? Of course. But you don’t watch them on film and say, ‘Oh that’s the guy that beats us.’ Even Will Shipley is going to need help.”

Shipley didn’t play Saturday, which certainly matters in a wholesale analysis of Clemson and its College Football Playoff aspirations in 2023. But shouldn’t someone else be able to break off a huge run, or crank out a big return, or get behind a defensive back?

None of that happened Saturday afternoon, and more than 50,000 witnesses were there to see it.

The good news is that they also witnessed a championship-caliber defense.

Swinney needs to hope that Clemson finds a way to avoid wasting it.

Cade Klubnik and Garrett Riley cover photo via Twitter @ClemsonFB.