Same as it ever was, same as it ever was…
Sigh. I come to this preview dejected and still trying to process how Clemson blew yet another primetime game, at home no less, and subsequently rendered this season meaningless beyond salvaging some moral victories down the stretch. I’ve had the 1990s feels since that blowout disaster in Baton Rouge, and it certainly isn’t getting a whole lot better. I’ll still put on my orange and pull for victories, but entering “wait ‘till next year” mode before November is a real kick in the pants.
Looking back at the VT game:
The Good: Other than two drives, Clemson’s defense was largely fantastic all night long. They completely stuffed VT’s run game and got after Grunkenmeyer all night long, but credit to Grunkenmeyer for being the real difference in the game, IMHO, by protecting the ball and delivering in the clutch. He got that last pass off under heavy pressure, but probably his biggest play of the night was getting a throwaway to avoid a big sack inside his five yard line which ultimately began a 17 play TD drive in the first half. Those moments are massive and why you benefit from a veteran, proven commodity behind center. Nolan Hauser is a stud, period. He even added a great punt to his night of great field goal kicking. My son is at Indiana, so I’ve watched them a lot too, but their ability to deliver in the clutch despite a poor or pedestrian offensive game far surpasses Clemson’s.
The Bad: Clemson was just bad in the biggest moments. VT makes a big mistake trying to fake a punt in its own territory which Clemson handled, only to not even get a field goal attempt. Clemson doesn’t finish the sack on VT inside the 5 and they ultimately convert multiple third and a fourth down on the way to a 17 play TD drive. Clemson got stuffed on a fourth and short but allowed VT to win the game with a fourth and short play late.
The Ugly: Dabo Swinney losing his mind on the sidelines and before the half when this was a mess of his own creation. He’s the one that said no to a portal QB and gambled on CV bridging the gap to Reynolds. Clemson has first year starters in either year one or year two at QB, RB, LG, and LT and only Jacobs at LT is really playing close to a veteran level consistently. Dabo exposed a lot of issues with Gideon Davidson’s play in his press conference that the common viewer may not have noticed and were not pointed out by the commentators. Clemson can’t afford it and continues to pay dearly for it.
Clemson Offense vs. FSU Defense: So much depends upon what Clemson can manage to do on this side of the ball for any real success down the stretch of this season. I’ve definitely given up on the idea that a switch is going to get flipped the way we saw in 2011 or even in the 2024 team who got it going on offense until Phil Mafah’s shoulder injury made him a shell of himself. Can Clemson even be reasonably expected to surpass 24 points? That puts a serious weight on the defense’s shoulders. Florida State has once again had its problems and sits at 3-4 overall and just 1-3 in the ACC, but they blew out a team that has been in many ways similar to the Tigers this year in UVA just a few weeks ago. Like Clemson, UVA struggles to produce explosive plays in the air, and if their running game isn’t really humming, they can’t score touchdowns. Florida State handled them easily and racked up 10 sacks in the process. That definitely worries me considering how badly Clemson has thrown the ball this year and the myriad of pass protection issues over the course of this season. Florida State, like the VT team Clemson just lost to, has been had through the air and its weakness is mostly in its coverage ability. Clemson could not exploit VT who had given up 300+ passing yards to California and Georgia Tech. Florida State isn’t bringing their 1993 or 1999 defense to the party, but they are good enough to load up on Clemson’s run game if Tait Reynolds and the skill guys around him can’t create some big plays to soften them up.
I did think Clemson’s OL played one of its better games against a quality VT defensive front. That may seem crazy considering the number of TFLs and sacks the Hokies produced, but the vast majority of those were on Reynolds not recognizing pressures or holding the ball too long or a running back missing a blitz pickup. Sacks like those are not on the OL, and when there are built in hot reads to counter blitzes, your QB has to be ready to hit them and get the ball out of his hands. FSU is going to bring numbers from various places with their 3-3-5 system. They will no doubt do a lot of the things LSU did in terms of exotic pressures. VT had great success blitzing the boundary corner, including on the final Tiger snap when they sacked Reynolds on fourth down. The Tigers have to do a much better job of A: staying out of the third (or in that case fourth) and long situations and B: having better answers for the blitzes which by nature open the door for explosives if you can take advantage.
One thing has become very clear: teams are not afraid of Bryant Wesco or T.J. Moore. When Charleston Southern is willing to play straight man coverage on Moore on the outside, you know folks are willing to take their chances with him. Defenses are sitting at 30 yards in, and playing defense is so much easier when you aren’t having to defend more space than that. Nothing is going to change until this offense forces folks to pay the price. Clemson fans are forced to hold their collective breath until that day comes. I fully expect FSU to sit on the screen game and play a lot of man coverage on the outside to free up numbers to attack Clemson’s running game on the inside, particularly on first and second down, so they can then bring every exotic they have in the book on third down. I know it can be beaten because we’ve seen plenty of teams shred the Noles this season, but those teams aren’t having the offensive issues Clemson is having. What happened to UVA is much more what I am fearing could potentially happen to Clemson on Saturday night.
Clemson must establish the run game. They did a moderate job of this against VT and at least got beyond 100 yards despite all the negative plays. As noted earlier, Swinney called Davidson out for a subpar game in terms of taking runs where they are designed to go, trusting his blocks, and being sound in pass protection. They gave Jarvis Green more snaps in the second half but none for Jay Haynes and only 2 for Chris Johnson, Jr. Tightly contested games often give you the best indicator of the true depth chart and sense of depth your team may have. It is troubling that a C- game from Davidson still led to his getting a lion’s share of the snaps. Relative lack of competition can often be a culprit behind lingering execution problems. Hopefully Gideon will be more locked in this week and deliver more like we know he can deliver because the team just can’t afford its best guys not playing up to par. If he or anyone else can produce a cheap TD like he did at California, it would be a sight for sore eyes and something desperately needed for this offense to turn a corner.
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Clemson Defense vs. FSU Offense: “Help me Obi Wan, you’re my only hope.” That famous Star Wars line has been playing in my head a good bit watching Clemson’s defense. They could have done more last week, but not a whole lot more than what they did to put Clemson in position to win the game. They completely stuffed the VT run game and cut their usual passing production in half. The only things lacking were a few mistakes during the 17 play TD drive VT had in the first half, the penalties that directly aided the game-winning drive, and not being able to produce a turnover. I said in my preview that I worried most about the TE and RB out of the backfield in the passing game versus the WR, and sure enough the TE caught the two TD passes thanks to a safety busting a coverage and a former walk-on linebacker not having his eyes in the right place.
Florida State is extremely dangerous on offense and has not had much issue moving the ball or scoring points since about week 3. Unlike Clemson, they have a veteran quarterback from the portal who is producing both with his legs and his arm. They also have more weapons at WR than the Hokies, particularly Duce Robinson. FSU has done a lot to fix a bad OL situation and that group is much improved from the last two or three units in Tallahassee. Mike Norvell is a common punching bag among fans, and he certainly has his issues as a head coach, but they are more buttoned up on offense than Clemson by a large margin. Clemson’s defense must one again stop the run, but this time it becomes harder because of how Daniels can feature in the running game. This game will go a very long way to showing just how much Clemson has improved in dealing with a mobile QB from the LSU game, when Sam Leavitt ran around seemingly at will. Tom Allen’s crew will hopefully be much more disciplined in rush lanes and containment this week.
I certainly expect Ashton Hampton to be largely, if not entirely, responsible for Duce Robinson. Clemson did a relatively good job on him last year but got away with some busted coverages thanks to inaccurate throws. Daniels is a superior passer to Tommy Castellanos and Clemson certainly doesn’t want to provide the same opportunities for explosive pass plays this year. FSU loves a variety of screen plays as well and Clemson’s defense has been susceptible at times to those, particularly the opening TD Miami got from a screen play. VT’s best passing plays were on underneath screens, shovel passes, and pop passes.
FSU has been an outstanding team working from their opening scripts to games. They have raced out to leads in games against Alabama, Louisville, and got on the board early against Miami as well. Clemson cannot afford to let FSU build an early two score lead considering how bad the offense has been this season. Turning over FSU is probably going to be a must for victory on Saturday night.
Special Teams: Clemson had more bright moments in the VT game with Hauser’s performance and also not allowing VT to pull off that fake punt. They managed to keep VT’s dangerous punt return game in check as well. This group needs to keep delivering as it has been, and hopefully the offense will do enough to not undercut their effort. This phase can be the difference, but you can’t have one of the others be so bad it renders it moot.
Overall: Swinney seems very confident in the mindset of this year’s team that they will dust themselves off and get back to the fight. Florida State showed a lot more resilience than they had been showing against Miami but lost anyway, so how well can they rebound? FSU has had issues when things start going the wrong way, especially in that Louisville game, but can Clemson mount enough of a push and score points to even create that sinking reaction? I’d take any kind of win even if it is ugly, of course, but it sure would be nice to finally be truly pleasantly surprised by a Clemson football team for the first time in a long time. This used to be the marquise battle for ACC supremacy. Now it is more like a battle for staving off the pink slip.