rayef3rw
All American
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I was at the game so I won't take the time to go through and respond individually to each thing that came up, but a couple of my thoughts here:
1. I'm really not that upset by this loss. I'm not normally super emotionally invested in games, but it happens. After the Wake loss last year, for example, I was torn up about it for a couple days. This time, though, I'm not that mad. At the end of the day, I think we were a bit overrated, Clemson is a rapidly improving team (especially DJ) and their pass rush is great -- legit one of the best in the nation, even without Bresee there.
2. People calling for DD to be fired RIGHT NOW are delirious. In my opinion, it's not even worth taking the time to argue with them. Maybe if the wheels fall of as the season goes on we can consider it, but losing by 10 to a top 5 team on the road ain't it.
3. A lot of people are saying we were outclassed all game. I disagree. We were outclassed for a lot of the second half, especially Q4, but in the first half pretty much all the metrics were pretty close. I go back and forth about whether we abandoned the run too early in the second half, but ultimately, we weren't getting anything going on it. Felt Sumo was a bit under-utilized, but like I said earlier, their D-line is stout, and as a primarily between-the-tackles runner, I can understand why we didn't try using him more.
4. On that note, the reason it was so easy to stuff all our runs and towards the end a lot of our non-short passes is because we lack a legitimate deep threat. The big change between halves was that Wes Goodwin (Clemson DC) had players double Thayer up the middle, and Thayer is primarily a mid-range threat at best in this kind of game. After that, they didn't even really try and guard deep. We need to improve in the pass catching department, especially deep. Pennix and his injury is a part of that, but I don't think having him for this game would have changed the deep pass action much.
5. A lot of State fans watched (or, probably, read about) the Wake game and how Clemson's secondary got exposed, and are wondering how/why we didn't hassle Clemson's secondary the same way. For one, they got 3/4 of their injured guys back in secondary. For another, Clemson realized their d line could create havoc before we could prey on their weak secondary. This could devolve further into a discussion about whether Wake has a better o-line than us, but ultimately I think it comes down to scheme and personnel differences. And I think Goodwin had a "come to Jesus" moment post-Wake and improved a lot in his calling between the two. Finally, we miss Emezie more than I think we thought we would -- a lot more. We need someone (or multiple someones) to step up ASAP. I thought it would be Rooks coming into the season, but we haven't used him much.
6. I really liked what our D was doing pre-snap. A lot of shifts and motion on the line, which is not something you see a lot on that side of the ball. It worked well at first, but I think ultimately they got tired, partly from being on the field too long, and partly from trying to communicate in a truly raucous and hostile environment. If the offense could have sustained a few good drives to get them rest, Clemson wouldn't have been able to move down the field as easily in the 4th quarter and instead of us putting it back to 10 with a late 'gift' TD (I don't personally see it that way, Clemson still had all their starters in, but it seems to be a widely-held perception) we could have been better equipped to stop one or both of their late TD and FG drives
7. The fumbles. Or not. I think Shipley's could have been overturned, but it wasn't ultimately. The sideline one that Ayden White (I think?) knocked out of the guys hands, I never got a clear view of the replay, but I'm pretty sure he stepped a toe out out before we forced it from his hands. Ultimately, they could have changed the game a lot, but I have a hard time pinning this loss on them alone. Clemson fans also felt there were a few holding/PI calls that should have been called and were upset with the refs. I disagree with the PI -- the crew was calling it tight a lot of the night, I think they were consistent and made good calls in that department. I have no idea which plays they felt there was holding on, so I can't speak to those. But I don't fault the refs for how things were called, and won't pin this loss on them. Didn't help, of course, but us not getting out of our own way was a bigger issue.
8. I wasn't that mad about Beck's play-calling Saturday night. There have been plenty of times this year where it's cost us (*cough* ECU, MSST last year *cough*) but tonight wasn't one. I think he was trying to work around our lackluster receiving corps and Clemson's explosive pass-rush and did a pretty good job of it. I've already commented some on the running, I think it would have been good to try and stretch the field a bit more, but could we have? I don't think so. At the same time, he is a known commodity with a known shelf-life at each of his past OC jobs, so I don't expect him to be much longer than another year here.
Anyways, a TLDR of all this is that while I would've loved to win, the loss isn't season ending. Makes the road to ACC CG tougher and takes it out of our hands, but it's not impossible -- yet. Even then, I still think we can make a marquee bowl game if we don't let Clemson beat us twice and take care of business the rest of the year. I think we have a few major flaws, but ultimately, I think Clemson's team (and coaching) has improved a lot more as the season has progressed. Our receiving corps scares me more than anything else, Leary looked rattled at times because the pass rush got home so often. But this doesn't significantly alter my expectations for the season.
[Edited on October 3, 2022 at 9:04 AM. Reason : e]
[Edited on October 3, 2022 at 9:06 AM. Reason : e2]  10/3/2022 9:01:57 AM
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