Gameday 101: Clemson offense vs. Louisville
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Well, that was... interesting. One week after absolutely obliterating the Florida State defense, Clemson came out looking to keep the momentum rolling against a struggling Louisville defense.
And they did? Sort of? Let’s talk about it.
-Things started off strangely, to say the least. After Travis Etienne busted off a long run to start the game, things stalled out. Trevor Lawrence missed a wide-open JC Chalk on a check down on second down and short, in which he had some room to rumble. On third and short, the Tigers picked up a false start, and then Lawrence was sacked. The Tigers settled for a B.T. Potter 51-yard field goal, but that wasn’t the end of the first-half struggles.
-So much of Clemson’s high expectations coming into the year came because of the play of Lawrence. The sophomore quarterback, however, has struggled at times this season and added two interceptions to his total on Saturday. The first came on the second drive of the day, in which he tried to find Amari Rodgers over the middle inside the red zone. While Lawrence gets the pick added to his stats, this play was the result of Amari Rodgers not properly cutting in front of the safety. Rodgers got too deep into his route, and the safety was able to easily step up and take it in.
On the second interception, Lawrence tried to find Tee Higgins down the seam, who got tangled up with the defender and went to the ground, resulting in an easy pick. This was a poor read by Lawrence. Had Tee even stayed up, it was still a throw into what was practically triple coverage. Lawrence had a wide-open Etienne who had slipped out of the backfield but elected to go for the big play instead. It bit him.
-After that pick, things went pretty well for the rest of the half. Lawrence came right back out throwing again on drive four, this time electing to take an easier pass underneath to Amari Rodgers, who shook one tackle and went 61 yards to the Louisville 7-yard line. On third and goal, Lawrence stepped up away from the pressure and fired a dime right over the top of a Louisville defender to Joseph Ngata, who skied for it and brought it in. This was a nice and crucial bounce-back drive, in which the Tigers really started to wake up.
-Perhaps the best drive of the game came right before half, in which the Tigers used tempo to easily move from their own 23 to the endzone in just five plays and one minute. Lawrence started the drive with completions of 14 and 16, both passes underneath in which he trusted his skill players to pick up yards after the catch. He then came back over the middle to Justyn Ross after sucking the Louisville defense up for a 22 yard gain. After spiking the ball to save a timeout, Lawrence dropped back to pass again. Not finding anyone initially, Lawrence bought some time by bouncing out of the pocket and scrambling to his left. Without being completely set, Lawrence fired towards the back of the endzone for Ross, he went up and pulled it down between three Louisville defenders. While some people will see this as a dangerous pass, in reality, if Ross doesn’t get the ball, it harmlessly goes out of the back of the endzone. It was a perfectly placed ball, and the theme of Lawrence trusting his skill players continued.
-The running game, and Travis Etienne, had another huge game against the Cardinals. Etienne racked up 192 yards and a touchdown on just 14 carries, including a 49-yard scamper late in the third to give Clemson a comfortable 24-3 lead.
-As a team, Clemson ran it 37 times for 298 yards, an average of 8.1 yards per carry. Darien Rencher got his first career touchdown in the fourth quarter, and Chez Mellusi capped the scoring with a 16-yard touchdown.
-One interesting development I noticed was the use of Diondre Overton at tight end a couple of times. Overton is a big-bodied receiver who loves to block, and he has excellent hands. Moving him to the tight end spot full time, where the Tigers have been underwhelming this season, might not be a bad move. This is a situation you should continue to monitor moving forward.
-Tee Higgins was double-teamed all game and had just one catch for three yards. However, it seemed to me that he was robbed of an uber-athletic touchdown grab. Lawrence put the ball on Higgin’s back shoulder with a bullet, and Higgins had to contort his body around to get his hands on it, and then tap his toes down. The officials called it incomplete on the field, and there was some doubt as to if the ball moved on Higgins’ way down to the ground, but it was a situation where had it been called a touchdown, it likely would have stood.
While the Tigers suffered some first-quarter struggles, the rest of the game went pretty smoothly. The Tigers put up 551 yards and 45 points, and still left probably another two or three scores on the field. All in all, a solid performance that shouldn’t be ignored just because of a couple of interceptions.
Note: We will have a defensive look at Gameday 101 coming out tomorrow morning.