Recruit [98]
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Posts: 35
Joined: 8/9/18
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Rational Post-Game Thoughts
Nov 25, 2018, 3:07 PM
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As with many things in life, once you step back from the immediate gut/emotional reaction of an negative situation and approach it rationally, you’re perspective can change (assuming you’re approaching it as a pessimist, as I often do).
Well, needless to say, I was one of the crowd who felt very disappointed with Clemson’s performance last night; feeling the way you feel after a loss. But, after sleeping on it, it’s not as doom and gloom as I originally thought:
Positive Rationalizations:
- This was a much needed challenge and wake up call for our defense, and especially our coaches. Sometimes adversity is the greatest teacher. Just like we made adjustments after the A&M game, we’ll change things after this performance; our team has proven that over and over again.
- While some of the defensive issues were talent/player related (which, I’ll get to), most of the issues were busts/scheme/coaching related; which, means it can be fixed THIS SEASON. Those few weeks after the ACC Championship will be crucial and necessary for those improvements to be made before the playoffs where we’ll face MUCH better opponents.
- While I often hate these types of excuses, I truly think they had (at the very least a small) part to play last night: I believe our players lost their “nameless/faceless opponent” mentality last night and severely underestimated/disregarded SC as a team; plus SC played their best game of the season and took Clemson at unawares. While Dabo does a great job of creating a football culture to prevent underestimating opponents, you just have to think (to a certain extent) Clemson let some of the outside expectations get to them and distract them. Now, this isn’t a slight to SC (I mean their fans and experts were expecting a beat down too), but given both team’s talent/injuries we can honestly say Clemson played down to SC and SC played up to Clemson. So, we shouldn’t overreact and read TOO much into this ONE performance when we have an entire season’s worth material to look at.
Negative Rationalizations:
- While I truly believe BV is a top 3 D-coordinator in the nation, he has shown that he sometimes struggles with schemes/in-game adjustments. Just like the Pitt 2016 game, SC threw out some weird/funky looks and formations all game; and Brent struggled to adjust. Plus, as with many similar opponents, we struggled with their tempo and getting lined up. Now, I think Brent does a great job of not letting himself get fooled twice (i.e the shovel pass getting shut down after the Pitt game), but it’s the IN-GAME adjustments that he can sometimes struggle with. I can forgive one-quarter or even one-half of defensive issues if you’ve never seen an offensive game plan before. But, during halftime, you have to recognize what’s happening, make adjustments, and get back out ahead of the opposing offense; but we just didn’t do that against SC. If we had come out the 2nd half and shut them down, all ills in the 1st half would have been forgiven. It’s weird because I know BV has made solid in-game adjustments before (i.e the Duke game this season), but, for whatever reason, he struggled in this game. Now, post game, BV did the right thing and took all the blame (a sign of a great coach), but we know it wasn’t just all on him, it was the players too. Speaking of players...
- Our lack of safety talent/consistency and poor LB pass coverage are the two most glaring issues with our defense, and possibly the team as a whole. Once again, the scheme was an issue last night (see above), but on many of the big plays given up our safeties were in position or we had the right defensive call yet they just lost leverage or lacked discipline with their eyes and got beat. Plus, as much as BV can scheme, our LB coverage is just often poor and a huge problem (this is why Tre Lamar doesn’t play against spread teams as much and why it wasn’t a big deal that he didn’t play last night). These are player related issues and I’m sure BV is doing his best to work around them. Now, all hope is not lost. With hard work, practice, film study, discipline, etc. we can cover up our player deficiencies, but only to a certain extent. The fact is, these problems can’t be ENTIRELY solved this season, they can only be masked. I think next season with the influx of DB talent and the experience gained, we’ll be better in the secondary, but there’s only so much you can do this season. Whether or not we contend for the Natty comes down to how well our coaches and players mask these deficiencies and gameplan against their weaknesses. If nothing changes between now and the playoffs, we may just have to look onward to 2019...
Overall, while I’m still a little disappointed because of the defense, we won by 21 and our offense looked great. Plus, we’re 12-0, soon to be ACC champs, state champs, on a 5 game streak against SC, and will more than likely be in the playoffs. I can only complain so much. I was a fan during much of the Bowden years so I have context behind our success. I still believe we can win the Natty this year, we just have to get back to work and fix our issues!
God Bless,
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