Auburn victory takeaways (link)

quozzel

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Re: Auburn victory takeaways (link)

Sep 3, 2017, 12:00 PM

Their inability to protect Stidham, and Stidham's unsteadiness, were glaring red flags to me. Clemson is going to bring the house and plug running lanes left and right (see last year) and Stidham is going to have to stand and deliver.

Stidham is a very good thrower, if you give him time. He proved that in two of his starts when he was with Baylor - he put over 400+ yards on K-State in his debut, and had thrown for over 200 by halftime against Oklahoma State. There's a caveat to that - those defenses were absolutely dreadful, ranking below #100 out of 127 FBS teams in 2015, and when he got in against a half-decent defense (that being the mighty #38-ranked defense of Oklahoma that we shredded in the Orange Bowl a few weeks later), he looked bad, throwing for barely 200+ even in Baylor's high-flying offense. And he got taken out by Oklahoma State (and their mighty 105th-ranked defense) the next week and didn't play again the rest of the year.

So his pocket presence is a question. His awareness of the rush and ability to move - along with his poise - in the pocket are questions. The one TD Auburn gave up was a direct result of Stidham missing a blitz, getting blindsided, and coughing up the ball. Georgia Southern ran it in for a TD.

He does run well. He gets outside the pocket he looks like a 4.6-4.7-type guy. Guy has some wheels and we need to be aware of that.

Regardless: give the guy time, he'll hurt you. Venables will know it; expect Venables to absolutely swarm Stidham. And keep in mind the best D Stidham has ever faced, again, was Oklahoma's, and that happened at home in Baylor. (Sorry, the Big-12 just doesn't do defense.) He has never been on the road in an environment remotely like Death Valley; he has never been up against a defense remotely as good as Clemson's. And as talented as Stidham unquestionably is, he still often looked shaky against Georgia Southern. We've seen plenty of QB's drown when faced with what he's about to see. And for all the hype this really is just his fourth and a half game...and just his second in this system.

Mind, similar questions will undoubtedly be asked about Kelly Bryant, but we have a better O-line and vastly better receivers.

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I made the statement the other day when you made your post about disagreeing with a lot of your points. I'm kinda glad I was right. This team is the deepest from 1 to 85 than we have seen like ever here at Clemson. I felt Richard, when given the chance, would perform well, and he did. I felt Fuller was ready to take the next step at RB, and he is. Etienne and Feaster look to be burners, and great change of pace runners. We didn't get a big dose of Cain, McCloud and Renfrow, but then again, didn't need to. Bryant and Ferrell are as good a set of DEs there is in the country. Kelly, Register, Rudolph, Foster all got reps yesterday, sorely needed reps. Our LBs are as good as there is in college football. Lamar, ODaniel and Joseph are all tackling machines. Yes, it was Kent State, but the reps received by 2nd and 3rd teamers yesterday is underrated. Very valuable. Auburn is talented, but I don't think Stidham will be taking them to the promise land. Clemson will beat Auburn Saturday, I'm going to go with 27-20. Not going to be easy.

Auburn victory takeaways (link)

Re: Auburn victory takeaways (link)

what about the clunkiness of our offense?***

Re: what about the clunkiness of our offense?***

Re: what about the clunkiness of our offense?***

Re: what about the clunkiness of our offense?***

Re: what about the clunkiness of our offense?***

Dont know about yall, but i saw a team that struggled to protect the

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