Now that I have recovered from last night's heart attack...

Sep 9, 2018, 3:19 PM

Some of my day-after thoughts from the A&M game:

1. A&M had 8 days to prepare for Clemson compared to our 5 days. Jimbo and A&M put those extra days to good use.

2. Our coaching staff really only had 1 game of A&M film (Northwestern State) to study. All other film study was from Fisher's and Elko's previous coaching gigs. Sure we have played against Jimbo's offense (i.e. FSU) and Mike Elko's defense (i.e. Wake Forest) but until you know how the specific players you are going up against play in those systems it is a hard thing to prepare for. Coversely, A&M had plenty of game film of existing Clemson players in a system both Fisher and Elko have schemed and played against before. As fans, we may have really undervalued how much this was a factor and advantage to A&M in last nights game.

3. Last night serves as a good reminder that being a highly ranked team means you will get every opponents best shot. Kudos to our guys for doing what had to be done to win in front of 104,000 loud A&M fans and a very motivated A&M team last night.

4. A&M is a good team that will win some big games this year even though they have a tough schedule. Their two toughest remaining games are away games (Alabama, and Auburn). I believe A&M will win the rest of their home games and beat USuC in Columbia and maybe MSST in Starkville (that will be a tough game). I think A&M can realistically win 8 or 9 games this year and maybe more if Mond has another game like last night against Alabama and/or Auburn. I believe this A&M win will help our strength of schedule resume come late November.

5. Travis Etienne is a much improved running back this year and the type of guy we have been needing to get us some hard yards. Tee Higgins is the real deal and will be a beast that cannot be contained as we go forward in the season.

6. We have two glaring weaknesses right now; deep route coverage by our defensive backs and our punting game. I think it is fair to say that about 50% of our deep route coverages end up in pass interference penalties. It has been this way for the last several years and is something that I hope Dabo addresses with some much needed urgency (attention Coach Reed - get it fixed!). As for punting... a champion caliber team must have a punting game capable of consistently flipping the field - we do not have that and until we do we are at risk of losing a closely contested game like last night.

7. It is actually a good thing we had this kind of fight to the finish game early in the season. Our coaches and players will learn a lot from this game and we will be a lot better for it. I predict the most improvement we make this year will happen this week thanks to this game. Our defense was somewhat humbled last night and it will only make them hungrier to not allow a repeat performance of this type against two good opposing QB's we face this year in Dungey (Syracuse) and Finley (NC State).

8. Final point - Trevor Lawrence is the future; Kelly Bryant is the "now". I, for one, was thankful we had Kelly Bryant play the majority of the second half. Trevor got some great experience last night and showed his incredible arm but when it was getting down to crunch time in the second half, I was thankful we had Kelly's experience to lead us. Those two late 3rd QTR scoring drives led by Kelly were the difference makers in the game.

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Now that I have recovered from last night's heart attack...

Re: Now that I have recovered from last night's heart attack...

I agree, that’s why we tried to run outside so much.***

Re: Now that I have recovered from last night's heart attack...

^^^This

Excellent points and I agree, especially about the heart attack!

Nice well written assessment of last night

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