Mafah: 'We got to make the plays. We got to want it more.'

Phil Mafah ran for his season-best in rushing yards.

Ariana Pensy - Correspondent - Monday, November 04 2024

CLEMSON - Usually when your running back has 171 rushing yards and two rushing touchdowns, that means you won the game. However, that was not the case for Clemson, as they lost 33-21 to Louisville while graduate running back Phil Mafah had another incredible performance.

“They presented us with what we expected, but we just got to make the plays. That’s all it is. We got to make the plays. We got to want it more. We got to have more effort, intensity, all of that,” Mafah said. “We (worked) so hard to play this game. You want it to go your way. But, it’s called football. It’s a tough game and gave it our all in the end, but obviously guys wanted more and aren’t satisfied with what we got.”

Against the Cardinals, Mafah had 30 carries en route to his 171-yard performance. That is the most carries Mafah has had in a game all season; the only game in his career he had more carries was in Clemson’s win against Notre Dame last season when he had 36 carries. Part of why he had so many carries was because junior quarterback Cade Klubnik was checking some of the plays when they were lined up, changing them from a pass to a run.

“Whatever they showed us, we made a couple checks in the game. It was supposed to be a pass, but we checked it to a run based on their formations,” Mafah said. “But, the run game was opening up just because they had to get more in coverage, and that just allowed the run game to open up, and we just gave it all we had.”

When a loss derails your season goals, such as getting to the ACC Championship and the playoffs, it can be an incredibly difficult thing for a locker room to deal with. While the Tigers are not completely out of the picture, they will need either ACC unbeatens Miami or SMU to lose multiple conference games in order for them to have a chance. Clemson also needs to win out, starting with playing Virginia Tech this coming Saturday, November 9 (3:30 p.m. / ESPN).

To prepare Clemson for that game, Mafah said he will lead by example, as that is the mindset he developed in his time as a Tiger.

“You can’t let this loss carry into next week because it can affect us and just like life, Coach Swinney talks about how you’re going to get knocked down in life. Things aren’t going to happen how you expect them to happen. It’s just about how you respond. So, just got to respond. So, just got to respond. It’s where the leadership has to show the most and we just got to attack,” Mafah said. “I’m going to lead by example by just keeping my basic routine and bringing that same energy to practice, just showing up and being the same guy because a new week means another opportunity, and that’s just the mindset that we have to have. That’s the mindset that we’ve developed, that I’ve developed, while being here at Clemson.

"You can’t let last week carry into this week. You got to learn from it and keep going.”

Virginia Tech has put up a fight in all four of their losses this season. In fact, in all of those games, they have lost by one possession. One prominent loss was their game against Miami, where replay overturned a successful hail mary attempt by the Hokies to keep the Hurricanes undefeated. They are also coming off an overtime loss to Syracuse, although they were without their starting quarterback Kyron Drones in that matchup.