Clemson’s dynamic playmaking continues in Tallahassee

Antonio Williams found the endzone yet again for the Tigers in Tallahassee.

Ryan Kantor - Contributor - Monday, October 07 2024

Even without DJ Uiagalelei playing, it felt like Clemson was going up against their own inept offense from the previous three years. FSU’s wide receivers seldom got separation and dropped the ball when they did. Their offensive line couldn’t run block for their talented running backs. Frankly, it felt great to see Clemson’s arch-rival saddled with the pains that once encumbered Clemson. Meanwhile, Clemson brought their newfound dynamic and explosive playmaking on the road to earn their first true road win of the season.

While the final score was only 29-13, the performance was much more dominant than that. The Tigers accumulated 500 yards of offense (to Florida State’s 250) and had plays of 59, 57, 27, 25, and 24 yards while committing no turnovers. Clemson’s excellent cornerback duo of Avieon Terrell and Jeadyn Lukus dominated a poor Seminole WR corps for much of the game. DE Peter Woods returned, and Clemson held Florida State to just 22 rushing yards.

The Tigers settled for seven field goal attempts and had two blocked (Nolan Hauser was perfect in the five that were properly protected). Failures to execute in the red zone and on special teams were the only serious blemishes. Against a tougher opponent that could have haunted them, but this gives the Tigers an opportunity to course correct before those situations arise.

Clemson proved the massive improvements to the offense carry over against more athletic teams (FSU may be bad, but they’re still talented) and in tough road environments. They also established a physical running game for the first time all season. They’d mostly leaned on their explosive passing game, but in this contest, Phil Mafah and the Clemson running game took over in the second half. Mafah finished with 154 yards on a season-high 25 carries. Entering the contest, Mafah only had 43 carries and 342 yards (with a whopping 8.0 YPC). With the bigger workload in Tallahassee, he is now up to 496 yards on 68 carries – nearly 100 yards per game.

With Uiagalelei out with a hand injury, redshirt freshman Brock Glenn started at quarterback. Florida State would have liked to take the pressure off him, but with no help from the running game, he had to carry the load. Glenn made several great throws and gave the Seminoles a gutsy performance. He finished with 228 yards and 2 TDs. He was only 23/41 (56%) and had an interception, but his receivers dropped several explosive play opportunities. He should be their starting QB for the rest of the season. It will be interesting to see if they’re willing to commit to him beyond this season. If they’re patient enough to go through the growing pains, they may have a good QB that didn’t come through the portal.

After the win, Clemson jumped from 15th to 10th in the AP Poll. They jumped Missouri (loss to Texas A&M), Michigan (loss to Washington), Southern Cal (loss to Minnesota), LSU (off), and Notre Dame (off). Clemson lost in the only regular-season opportunity against a top-tier team (Georgia), which makes it difficult to expect them to beat a team like Texas, Ohio State, or Penn State in the playoff. Nevertheless, they appear to be playing at a level where they could beat a potential playoff opponent like Tennessee, Ole Miss, LSU, Notre Dame, or Miami/SMU in an ACC Championship battle.

On the topic of the SMU Mustangs, they had an exciting showdown in Louisville that ended with SMU earning an impressive road win. They’ve now settled on a quarterback (Kevin Jennings), and their offensive line has jelled. They are ranked (no. 25) and have an interesting path to the ACC Championship. They do not play Miami or Clemson. They host Pittsburgh and if they win that, they only have to beat Stanford, Duke, Boston College, Virginia, and Cal to go undefeated. They’ll likely drop one or two, but if they don’t and Clemson, Miami, and SMU all finish with 8-0 ACC records with no head-to-head contests, the Championship matchup could be decided by a third-party analytics source (next-to-last tiebreaker before a draw from the league office). College football is weird these days, but it is still as fun as ever.