The team this year is fun but hard to watch - such effort and grit with great wins and losses at times we could have jumped ahead in standings.
So I was curious - how does Clemson compare to other ACC teams ahead of us? Let's look at UVA, NCState, and Syracuse.
Clemson has had 6 quad 1 games. UVA and NC State have had 3 each. So twice as many. Huh. Winning percentage? NCS: 2-1 UVA: 1-2 Clem:2-4 Syr: 1-3
Though, if we could pull off a win vs. FSU, 3-4 in quad one wins. But still, 2 losses more for the good guys.
What about 'bad losses'? For the sake of argument, let's consider quad 3 losses as 'bad'. UVA: 5-1 Syr: 3-2 Clem:3-2 NCS: 1-2
Let's call it a pickup of a game for UVA vs. the good guys.
Ok, what about streaks of ACC losses? NCS: 3 straight CLEM:3 straight UVA: 3 straight SYR: 3 straight
All the same.
Quad 2: UVA: 4-2 and Clemson is 2-2. A pickup of two games.
Have to hand it to UVA for taking care of business in quad 2 and quad 3 games. But if they had 6 quad 1 games where would they stand? Two more losses, hanging out with ND and Syracuse right in front of us?
So, given the difference in the number of quad 1 vs. quad 2 games, what gets us to 5 losses vs. 8? We pickup one if we are in line on quad 3 games. Or better yet 2, if we never lose a quad 3 game. Win 2/3 of our quad 2 games, like UVA.
So, an exercise that shows Clemson isn't at the top tier in quad 3 performance but is in line with the other teams. And I'm still very happy about the 2 quad 1 wins.
We'll see how the year ends. I still have no idea what to expect but hope to see more great effort and great games.