Hangin' with the Chad

by David Hood - Senior Writer - Mon Sep 24 12:36:14 GMT-04:00 2012

CLEMSON – Chad Morris Chad Morris
Offensive Coordinator / QBs
View Full Profile made it loud and clear Monday morning that yes, he was proud of his offense’s effort in Saturday’s loss to Florida St., but he in no way blames the defense for the loss. In fact, he took the blame squarely on his shoulders.

“My job is to score more points than the other team has,” Morris said Monday morning. “Period. You aren’t going to be perfect. We will put our guys in position to be successful. They [opponents] have coaches and they are going to prepare and they are going to win a few of those battles. Our job as an offense is to score one more point that the other guys. My job is to put points on the board so we can win a ballgame and we didn’t get it done.”

Morris said he looks back to his team’s offensive lull in the second half as the deciding factor.

“There are a lot of positives we can build on,” Morris said. “But I go back to those three drives. Those three series – that was a prime, opportune time that we could have taken the crowd out of the game and we didn’t do it. I am proud of the scrappiness we had. We were playing at a high level. But there were a couple of bad play calls in there. We had the opportunity to make something happen and we didn’t get it done. It wasn’t all on the players.”

Morris said the loss was a tough one to take, but he was still proud of how well some of his players responded to playing a tough defense on the road.

“That was a tough one. I thought that we had some opportunities we didn’t capitalize on in the third and fourth quarters and we didn’t. My reaction after the game was pretty much on target, after watching the video. I thought our offensive line played well, considering the depth and quality they have. I thought our guard play was okay but that had a lot to do with guys they were rotating in. They fought hard. Tajh BoydTajh Boyd
RS Jr. Quarterback
#10 6-1, 225
Hampton, VA
View Full Profile played well. He battled and scrapped and was a warrior. The film didn’t lie. And Brandon FordBrandon Ford
Gr. Tight End
#80 6-4, 240
Wando, SC
View Full Profile was as physical as anybody we had out there.”

Morris was asked if he had thought about slowing down his tempo once he had the lead, and he called that a “very good question” before giving his answer.

“As you look at things like that, and you go through the score and look at it and we are up 28-14 and then the next time we are on the field we are up 28-21 or something like that,” Morris said. “They are reeling and trying to make some plays and trying to make some stops. I thought our tempo - because of having to win some short-yardage downs – was already slowed down. But I knew we had to create personnel mismatches with motion or personnel groupings in order to win on short-yarage. I thought those slowed us down. But as far as huddling and trying to take air out of the ball, that is hard. When you are up-tempo, which is hard to do. You find out you make more mistakes because that isn’t who you are. I tried to do that with personnel and motion.”

Morris did he was disappointed in the fact that Florida St.’s corners were more physical than Clemson’s wide receivers, and that led to Noles effectively shutting down Sammy WatkinsSammy Watkins
So. Wide Receiver
#2 6-1, 205
Fort Myers, FL
View Full Profile .

“I thought they were physical in the secondary and beat us up. They disrupted us,” Morris said. “It’s not that our guys didn’t play hard – they were just more physical than we were. And being physical is something we take pride in. They were very physical with Sammy – Sammy spent some time on the ground, whether that was slipping or getting re-routed. He had six catches, and six catches is usually a good night. We had several other plays called to him, but he was disrupted and we had to go to our second on third read. We had probably 12 passes called to him, and there were six that he actually got to.”

Other notes

On Boston College

“They are very well-coached and physical. They are big and coming off an open week. They have had two weeks to prepare for us, and I am sure we will see something we haven’t seen before. People say Clemson hasn’t played well up there and I really don’t care. This is a new team. It’s about what we do. That is the mentality we have to have. We are going up there and we have to be ready to play. We can’t wait to get back on the field Saturday.”

On Eric Mac LainEric Mac Lain
RS Fr. Tight End
#88 6-4, 260
Hope Mills, NC
View Full Profile moving to offensive line

“With Eric, that is something we had talked about for a while. We wanted it to be the right time. He is such an athlete, and when you move him to the offensive line his athleticism really stands out. We are excited about Eric. Playing that position may take all year and all spring. What we do know is we can make the move now and he can sit in on meetings and in practice and maybe we can see him in live action sometime this season.”