Clemson week always seems to be a little more exciting than most of the rest of the season. It’s our conference rival. It’s only about 100 miles on I-85 for the opposing teams fans. And it always seems to be a close game with a great finish. In fact, 6 of the last 8 games have been decided by 10 points or less. 5, 3, 4, 10, 1, and 4 to be exact. And those all happened to be GT wins, strangely enough. Clemson apparently can only beat us if they do so in a blowout. They did beat us by, uh, er… 24 and 36 in their two most recent wins. So in our 6 wins we beat them by a combined 27 points. And in their 2 they beat us by 60. Luckily for us, this weekend figures to be a close game. So we should be good. Of course, the 2003 and 2006 editions of the rivalry were supposed to be close as well… nevermind that.
My two thoughts going into this game: 1 – Is Clemson the best 3-win team in the country? 2 – Are we the worst 5 win squad?
I don’t really think we are the worst 5 loss team in the country, but on paper we aren’t real impressive. Sure we have looked better in the last 9 quarters, but we had to come back in the 4th quarter to beat a real bad Wake Forest team, and then UVA and Middle Tennessee are not exactly murderer’s row. I think we can play a lot better than we have so far. We have put together some really good drives and some really good quarters, but at some point, if you want to be a good team, you have to play well for an entire game.
What about Clemson? Hard to figure the tigers. They certainly pass the look test. They appear to have some real animals on defense, and some playmakers on offense. Ellington is probably not as good as Spiller was (who is?) but he may be awfully close. And yet, they found a way to lose three winnable games in a row, so they are 3-3 and their best win is against Maryland.
It gets very strange when you look at the stats. The team that beat Clemson the worst this season, statistically, was Miami (that is if you only look at Clemson opponents that actually won the game… more on that in a minute). They outgained Clemson by 60 yards, and only ran 3 more plays than the tigers. Next is probably Auburn. They only outgained Clemson by 10 yards, but they ran 21 fewer plays, so that’s a healthy advantage in terms of yards per play. Then again, I don’t think I am alone in thinking Clemson should have won that game. North Texas arguably beat Clemson worse than Auburn did, as they outgained them by 30 yards (what? The? ****?). But they ran over 30 more plays to get those yards, and of course they did lose the game. All that indicates Clemson probably hit some big plays on special teams and forced some turnovers. Clemson outgained UNC by 50 yards in the third game they lost.
The oddest thing though was how badly Maryland whipped Clemson in Clemson’s most impressive win so far this year. They gained 350 yards to Clemson’s 210, and averaged 5 yards per play to Clemson’s 3. Those are pretty big margins. Of course, Clemson being Clemson, they found a way to lose the stats that badly and still win the game 31-7. Really an impressive level of inconsistently and selective futility. But seriously, how do you get beat that bad by Maryland? This is a team that needed 4 turnovers by Navy inside Maryland’s 10 yard line so they could hang on to win by 3. They beat Duke by 6. They got blown out by a big east team! (No, it doesn’t matter that it was West Virginia. All 2010 big east teams are completely interchangeable, and also atrocious.) At least Clemson got the win, but as with most Clemson games, something about it left you shaking your head.
In other news, recent studies have shown that prolonged exposure to a Clemson football jersey causes migraines and temporary insanity in almost any species of test subjects.
So Georgia Tech can’t seem to play well for more than a few series at a time, and overall has looked underwhelming. Clemson has looked very impressive but their best talent seems to be throwing the game away. Put those two together and you find yourself with a difficult prediction to make. The only thing I feel confident about is that Clemson will leave most people scratching their heads after the game about something. Whether that is a “how did they play that well and manage to lose?” or “how did they beat GT 56-10 without outgaining the jackets?” is anybody’s guess. Or it could be something else entirely.
I expect our offense to find a few points, mostly because I don’t think Clemson’s defense is terribly smart or terribly well coached. Here is an interesting, if poorly written, article from a Clemson blog that details some of the idiotic nonsense Steele used to defend the triple option in the ACCCG:
http://www.shakinthesouthland.com/2010/10/20/1762242/kevin-steele-vs-the-triple-option
Clemson has a really good defensive line, but their linebackers are less than amazing and do not play very intelligently. And as the above article discusses, Clemson’s defense is not always very well coached. If our offensive line would play well, and regularly make the proper reads with regard to their blocking assignments, we probably would be able to exploit the mistakes Clemson is likely to make. But I don’t think our offensive line is quite there yet. I hope they really start to click in the next few games, but I don’t think it will happen this week.
Even so, Clemson’s only real chance to keep us from scoring in the mid 20’s is for their defensive tackles to beat us up somewhat like Iowa’s were able to do last year. That is a possibility, but I think our offensive line is a little stronger this year, and Clemson’s D line, while very good, is probably not as good as Iowa’s last year.
All that adds up to GT being ok offensively, but if we let it become a shootout, I am not sure we can keep up. I think Clemson is athletic enough to give us some problems, and force a few turnovers. If we don’t beat ourselves too much with mistakes, then I predict 24 or 28 points, which should be enough at least to give us a chance to win the game.
Thus, because I don’t think they will shut us down but also don’t think we will score at will, my key to the game is our defensive line against their offensive line. Clemson has the playmakers to hurt us if we give them space. Their athletes, like Ellington, are very good. The margin between their athletes and ours is probably not nearly as large as many Clemson fans would have you believe, but its probably not as even as most GT fans would tell you either. However, I have not been real impressed by Clemson’s offensive line so far this year. Our defense typically plays pretty well if we are not getting pushed off the ball. The problem is that we are all too often easy to push off the ball. But if Clemson can’t push us around, and I don’t think they will, then our defense could have a pretty good game. Depending on who you talk to, Groh is either a bad, mediocre, good or great defensive coach. However, I believe Clemson fans are pretty much unanimously in agreement that their offensive coaching staff, led by Billy Napier, is not very good.
So we have a coaching advantage and a defense that is normally pretty good at everything except power run defense. I think if Clemson can’t push us back any better than I think they can, we might be able to hold them under 20 points.
Of course, we should at least discuss our other main defensive weakness, that being occasional busted assignments in the secondary. They do not happen that often, but when they do, we don’t mess around. We let guys get WIDE open. Parker is easily a good enough quarterback to take advantage should we forget to cover anyone. We did so frequently against Kansas, UNC and N.C. State. Busted assignments have been much fewer and further between since then, but once again, how much can you really tell from beating Wake, UVA and Middle Tennessee St.?
Of course, Parker being good enough to hurt us if we bust coverages is only half the equation. Clemson’s receivers have, somewhat remarkably, been breathtakingly bad this season. You look at their recruiting rankings and it makes you wonder. I mean, running pass patterns and catching isn’t really that hard is it? Then again, our guys don’t seem real good at it either.
Anyway, I am most afraid of Ellington and Harper on runs or coming out of the backfield as receivers. If our defensive line does a good job competing, we will have a much better chance to slow those two down. I predict we do play well up front, and while Ellington and Harper get loose for a few big plays, they don’t end up being enough.
Special teams and trick plays always seem to play a role in this rivalry. Not sure what to make of that. Paul Johnson may have some tricks up his sleeve. Not too worried about Dabo. The most recent tricks he has tried have resulted in GT touchdowns. There was the reverse pass in 08 that was pick-sixed, and then the FG-punt that Tarrant took back to the house last year.
As far as special teams, Clemson is very good in both punt and kick returns. Our kick coverage has been excellent this year, but punt coverage not so much. Hopefully, we won’t be punting much, but if we do, look out. Our kickoff return unit has been good, but the punt return has been non existent. If it comes down to a field goal, Blair has been near perfect this year. He was 9 for 9, including 4 for 4 (I think) from beyond 40 yards, before he finally missed a 41 yarder against MTSU. Clemson’s kicker I would describe as average, but he did miss an easy one to lose the game against Auburn in OT.
I know that I picked us to lose to Clemson in my preseason picks, but then again I had us coming in at 7-0, and Clemson coming in at something like 5-1. So obviously I don’t know what I am talking about…
With the benefit of the first half of the season, I will now change my pick to… (drumroll) nothing. I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen. However, no self respecting blogger declines to pick a game. I foresee a close GT win. I know, not exactly going out on a limb according to recent history. Well, I don’t care. I think history repeats itself for one more year. I think it will be a close game, and that gives us the edge because Paul Johnson (+ Al Groh to a lesser extent) > Clemson’s coaching staff.
Sagarin’s computer says that Clemson should beat us by 4 on a neutral field, which means a 7.5 point win at Clemson. For what its worth. And Phil Steele’s power ratings have Clemson 3 points better than us.
But I don’t care…
I’ll call it 24 – 21, with Clemson of course doing something in the 4th quarter to help us win and to further antagonize their fans.
As usual, let’s take a look at the talent on both teams, as illustrated by espn.com’s recruiting rankings. But, once again, the team with the edge in this analysis has not overwhelmed so far this year. We had a big edge on Kansas, gave up a big edge to UNC, had a big edge on Wake, were about the same as N.C. St. Etc. But here it is anyway.
| | 2007 | | | 2008 | | | 2009 | | | 2010 | |
| | GT | Clem | | GT | Clem | | GT | Clem | | GT | Clem |
| Best | 81 | 81 | | 80 | 95 | | 80 | 82 | | 80 | 83 |
| Top 5 | 79.4 | 79.4 | | 78 | 86 | | 79.4 | 81 | | 79 | 80.4 |
| Top 10 | 78.5 | 77.9 | | 77.3 | 83.5 | | 78.8 | 79.3 | | 78.2 | 79.4 |
| Avg. | 75.65 | 75.1 | | 76.53 | 80.2 | | 76.85 | 78.58 | | 77.06 | 77.95 |
| Total Players | 20 | 20 | | 15 | 24 | | 21 | 12 | | 16 | 23 |
As you might expect, Clemson is predictably unpredictable even when it comes to recruiting. The 2008 class is out of this world. That was the one that most people ranked in their top 5, and espn has #2. But in 2007 they actually had a worse class than us, and 2009 and 2010 were a little better but not that much. Looks like a decent talent edge in favor of Clemson, but not overwhelming.
Here are the stats for both teams on the season:
| | GT | Clemson |
| Rush Yards Per Game | 328.14 | 165.33 |
| Rush Yards Per Carry | 5.77 | 4.47 |
| Rush Yards Allowed | 151.71 | 143.33 |
| Rush Yards Allowed/Carry | 4.05 | 3.77 |
| Pass Yards Per Game | 85 | 181.33 |
| Pass Yards Per Att. | 6.92 | 6.44 |
| Pass Yards Allowed | 195.57 | 214.33 |
| Pass Yards Allowed/Att. | 6.52 | 6.59 |
| Yards Per Play | 6.0 | 5.3 |
| Yards Per Play Allowed | 5.2 | 5.1 |
| Points Per Game | 31.9 | 30.8 |
| Points Allowed Per Game | 23.1 | 19.3 |
Clemson has played the 63rd (Sagarin) toughest schedule as compared to us playing the 111th, so factor that into these stats. Overall, the stats look pretty even, except that we have a slight edge most places. They have a slight edge in point differential, which is probably the most important though. Anyway, GT having a slight edge statistically in most areas against a weaker schedule is consistent with the two teams being roughly even.
If the Clemson team that should have won at Auburn and the GT team that did win in Chapel Hill both show up, it could be a very entertaining game. More specifically, if the GT offense from the first half against UNC and the GT defense from the second half against UNC show up. And if the first quarter and fourth quarter Clemson team from the Auburn game show up. You get the idea. Of course, if the Clemson team that played North Texas and the GT team that lost to Kansas show up, we could also have a very entertaining game, but for different reasons.
My goals for the game:
Win.
Usually I list statistical goals for the offense and defense, but I think stats go out the window anytime Clemson is playing anybody (see above analysis of Clemson’s season thus far), and just in general I’ll take any win I can get in Death Valley.
Go Jackets!
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