Clean knockout

CLEMSON -- The immediate reaction from the national landscape after Clemson’s 35-point win at Louisville was, “what’s wrong with Trevor Lawrence?”

Or better yet, after one “bad” half of football, what’s wrong with Clemson?

Lawrence, Clemson’s sophomore superstar, made a few horrible decisions, which led to the two interceptions, which led to the scrutiny, which led to Clemson dropping in the polls to No. 4. You know the whole story.

But after Clemson’s 59-7 shellacking of Boston College on Saturday night, the reaction from the college football world should be one thing:

Gulp.

The 23rd consecutive win for the Tigers served as a collective statement unlike any other Clemson has made so far this season. The kind of statement that says, “when Clemson plays like this, there are not many teams that could come out on top.”

The win, which moved the Tigers to 8-0 for the eighth time in program history, was dominant, complete, and clean wire to wire in all phases. Head coach Dabo Swinney said this game concluded the third quarter of his team’s season, and boy did they finish on a high note.

The Tigers racked up 674 yards of total offense, 372 through the air and 302 on the ground, and held the Eagles to a mere 177 total yards of offense. For the eighth time this year, Clemson held its opponent to less than 300 yards of offense.

“I thought this was our most complete game,” Swinney said after the win.

The Tigers did their damage by getting the ball to their playmakers and let them set the tone. Remember those two interceptions from Louisville that got so much attention over the last seven days?

Yeah, neither does Lawrence as he threw for a 16-of-19 clip for 275 yards and three touchdowns.

Zero interceptions. In fact, it was the first time Clemson’s offense didn’t have a single turnover since the 2018 national championship. We saw how that turned out.

Hopefully, we won't have to see Lawrence’s three incompletions being critiqued on our televisions over the next few days. He began the game by completing his first nine throws and was steady all evening long. 

On a night where rain was in the forecast, Clemson’s offense provided the only torrential downpour. The result of Clemson’s first six drives:

• Field goal.
• Touchdown.
• Touchdown.
• Touchdown.
• Touchdown.
• Touchdown.

“That’s what we’re capable of when we get in rhythm,” Swinney said of his offense’s hot start. “We made the layups. We were a very focused group. It was rare that we had a hiccup… They know what they can do. It was great for their confidence.”

And at the risk of being nit-picky, the Tigers would’ve had six consecutive touchdown drives if it weren’t for Lawrence missing a completely wide open Tee Higgins in the end zone on third-and-goal. Other than that instance, Lawrence was superb and let his receivers do much of the work.

Like Amari Rodgers, who looked faster than ever on his 19-yard touchdown grab in the second quarter. Or Justyn Ross, who led the team in catches with four for 60 yards.

Running back Travis Etienne churned out 109 yards on 16 carries and had three touchdowns, all in the first half. He also caught the ball out of the backfield three times for 33 yards.

There are plenty of players who could’ve walked away with MVP of the game for the Tigers But the honor of obtaining the O'Rourke–McFadden Trophy was given to Diondre Overton, a non-starter who has plugged along and finally got to reap the benefits of his hard work. More on that later.

Overton finished with three catches, which all went for touchdowns, and a career-high 119 yards. His 63-yard touchdown in the third quarter was the fatal blow for a Boston College team that couldn’t keep up with Clemson’s speed on the perimeter.

Clemson’s offense ran 80 plays and averaged 8.4 yards on those plays. That’s about as efficient as it gets for an offense that, since the second quarter of Louisville last week, looked like it’s beginning to hit its stride.

“That’s back-to-back-to-back 500-plus yard games. Felt like we were really close to a game like this the last few weeks,” Swinney said. “It was good to see us put it all together.”

The story coming into the game was how would Clemson respond to the different kind of offense Boston College runs and the physicality brought with it. Swinney said all week he wanted to see his new-look front embrace that challenge.

Well, that front got a ton of push and made life miserable for an Eagles offense that went three-and-out seven times. One of the few bright spots for the Boston College fans who made the trip to Death Valley was seeing running back AJ Dillon become the school’s all-time leading rusher.

But on the very next play, after he eclipsed the milestone, Dillon missed a block, which brought Chad Smith free for a sack and forced a fumble leading to a Logan Rudolph scoop-n-score. That’s just about how the night went for Boston College and for the Tigers.

Last week against North Carolina State, Dillon had 34 carries, 223 yards (6.6 yards per carry), and 3 Touchdowns. Against Clemson on Saturday night: 76 yards on 19 attempts (4 yards per carry) and one touchdown.

Clemson matched Boston College’s physicality and then some. It was another near-clean sheet for this defense that frankly feels like it has shut out its opponents at this point. Their performance as a whole every week almost seems to one-up the last.

Tiger fans could go to bed without worry that their team was going to drop in the AP polls yet again. As other undefeated teams continue to go down on what seems like a weekly basis, Clemson looks as if it is just getting warmed up before the fourth quarter of its season really starts.

As for those pesky polls, they genuinely don’t matter. At least, not this week. But it doesn’t mean these coaches and players don’t notice.

And with as potent of a performance the defending champs just put together, fans (and voters) have been put on notice. Not many teams in the country would have beaten that Clemson team we saw in that first half. 

“We wanted to have the mindset that we were going into a fistfight with a team that wanted a fistfight,” co-offensive coordinator Tony Elliott said. “We wanted to take the first punch and we wanted to let them know that we were coming to play and we were going to keep on swinging and see who had the toughest jaw.”

The Tigers are starting to finally put it all together while supplying that knockout blow, which is a scary sight for the rest of the country.

Gulp.