Clemson

The Pitt game was at least impressive in that we won without playing terribly well.  At least without playing well on offense.  The defense was impressive.   The overall performance got more impressive when Pitt beat Notre Dame last weekend.  Notre Dame is a good team and a good defense, and Pitt gained over 100 yards more on Notre Dame than on us.  I'd like to give us a lot more credit for Pitt, but then again they did lose to Navy the week before.  Looking at their record as a whole, they are a decent team, so an 11 point win when we did not really play that well is somewhat impressive.  I would still prefer to play well, but winning anyway is nice.

The Pitt game makes two weeks in a row we have done enough to win without really playing our best. The computers continue to think we are a pretty good team.  Most have us around #30, but I've seen us as high as #10 and as low as #40.  Ten seems a little ridiculous, without a real marquee win and with a series of losses to good but not great teams.  But it is sort of puzzling why the unbiased computers rank us as highly as they do.  All year long I've had the sneaking suspicion that we are capable of playing better than we really have (except the Syracuse and possibly Duke games).  I wonder if we are due for a break out game?  If so, I would prefer it comes against UGA, but Clemson would also be nice.

This should be an interesting game.  Both teams have been fairly inconsistent, both are much improved on defense, and both are the type of offenses that depend heavily on execution.  All offenses depend on execution (all of football depends on "execution" if you want to take it far enough).  But these two offenses mores than others.  Clemson is more dependent on Boyd finding the right WR and making a good throw and catch.  We are more dependent on making the right option reads and the right blocks.  But the point is either team can play well and just annihilate somebody, or struggle and barely beat Boston College, NC State or UVA.  That fact makes this game a little more unpredictable than most.  But here goes anyway.

Clemson is much improved on defense.  The past couple of years their defense was mediocre at best.  This year, the computers I pay attention to (some of which rank defenses and offenses in addition to teams overall) have Clemson's defense in the #25 range nationally - quite a bit better.  Clemson's offense is generally regarded as its strength (and the past two years it has been much better than the defense).  Its national rank, using conventional stats like scoring per game, is higher than the defense.  But the margin in closer than you'd think (#15 versus #23).  However, Clemson's hurry up offense results in more possessions and more plays per game, for both teams.  Meaning it inflates offensive numbers for both teams.  Several times this year Clemson has played games with 17 or 18 or more possessions.  GT averages closer to 11, for reference, and most teams average 12-13.  Efficiency stats tend to rate Clemson's offense and defense about the same, roughly #25.  Clemson's offense is anywhere from #15 to #35 depending on where you look.  Overall, I would say their offense is not quite as good this year, which makes sense given the loss of Hopkins, Ellington and Ford.  They are still good on that side of the ball but are a much more complete team now.

Fortunately, so are we.  In years past we have had a similar profile to Clemson - mediocre to bad defense but good offense (albeit probably not quite as good on either side).  This year we are in the #30 to #35 range on both sides, and strangely a top 25 team in special teams.  (the various computer rankings I use for these numbers adjust for quality of competition).

This game is actually close to even on paper.  Clemson would be favored by perhaps 4-6 on a neutral field, at least according to these computers.  At Clemson the spread of 10 is probably about right, but remember the inconsistent nature of both teams means just about anything could happen.  We have only two common opponents (we did better against Syracuse but barely and we were at home, they did better against UVA by a good margin) so that favors Clemson but being only 2 games, does not tell us much.

If we are going to win, I think we need to move the ball steadily and control the clock.  Clemson likes to use its hurry up offense to get into a rhythm, prevent the defense from substituting much, and get the defense tired.  If we can control the speed of the game and make the game closer to 10 possessions, we have a good chance.  Clemson's offense is not as overwhelming as it once was, and our defense is better, which should mean we can get a few stops.  However, if we are going to move the ball, I think we will need to attack the perimeter.  Clemson's front seven is better than its secondary, and the secondary is not very good at run support.  We'll need to block up front just well enough to force them to respect the dive, even if we don't hurt them there very much.  Then I think you'll see a lot of rocket tosses, and speed, load or counter options, because the B-Back blocks and there is no dive option.  So those options guarantee the play attacks the edge.  If we can have a lot of success attacking the interior we might have a very good game, but I think thats unlikely given that Clemson's front is very good.

If Clemson is able to get stops and create a fast game with lots of possessions, they may win easily.  Our defense is good and I think it matches up well with Clemson (we are probably better suited to defend speed than power) but consistently getting stops against this offense will be tough.

Overall, I think the defenses play better than expected.  Which will favor Clemson slightly because it will result in higher possessions.  But we move the ball well enough to slow the game down somewhat.  I'm thinking 13-14 possessions.  Below Clemson's average but well above ours.  And Clemson gets a close, hard fought win, something along the lines of 31-24.

I hope I'm wrong.  I think we can win and it would be nice to get a signature win this season.  But Clemson is favored for a reason.

Let's go Jackets!