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-18.5 vs clemson

OrangeBowlMagic said:
One nonsensical thing I’ve been thinking about:

Is this the week we really turn it on and start to play national championship football from opening kick to final whistle?

Hear me out. And trust me, I know this is silly. But I don’t know about you guys, but this season has sucked for me this far. Watching this team play football is the epicenter of my life, as utterly pathetic as that is to admit as a grown man with a career and family. But it’s true. So I’ve obviously been excited that we’re playing ball, it’s football season, we’re playing games, etc. But the year really has had no juice for me at all. Not one of these games has really moved the needle in the least bit to this point. I know Mario is an intense dude, the practices are intense, he doesn’t accept complacency, or mediocrity. All that stuff. You can’t play football half-assed. I get all that. But I just wonder, even subconsciously, if the kids kind of feel the same way? We’ve been a 21+ point favorite in every game. And yes, I know Clemson sucks, and the line is big again. But it’s still Clemson. That logo still gets your attention. It’s our first Saturday night, primetime game, coast to coast national TV, marquee contest.

Am I totally insane for thinking that maybe this is one we *really* get up for and it has our full, full attention. We have a bye next week. There’s nothing on the immediate horizon to look forward to. Again, I know this is dumb and pie in the sky optimism, but a part of me thinks this team is finally ready to explode against a “name brand” opponent and we see the full potential Saturday night. We usually get up pretty well to play in big games. Maybe we actually treat this like one and put on a massive show and really open some eyes on Saturday night in front of the whole country.

The other games in primetime are ***. ESPN has BYU @ TCU. Fox has Texas Tech @ Colorado. ESPN2 has Arkansas @ Texas A&M. NBC has Washington @ USC. We are, by far, the biggest and best show in town. Every person who isn’t a vested fan of the teams above will have Miami on the main screen.

How bout Mario gets these boys to go out and put on a display for the world that we are, unmistakably, not to be ****ed with?
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Unfortunately, this is one of the many reasons we’ve always struggled in such a bad conference.

Hard for us to get up for a Pitt, GT, Louisville, etc. while we’re everyone’s Super Bowl.
 
I just watched the Clemson vs. Cal highlights… Yikes, that was brutal to watch. Ugly game from both teams
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
One nonsensical thing I’ve been thinking about:

Is this the week we really turn it on and start to play national championship football from opening kick to final whistle?

Hear me out. And trust me, I know this is silly. But I don’t know about you guys, but this season has sucked for me this far. Watching this team play football is the epicenter of my life, as utterly pathetic as that is to admit as a grown man with a career and family. But it’s true. So I’ve obviously been excited that we’re playing ball, it’s football season, we’re playing games, etc. But the year really has had no juice for me at all. Not one of these games has really moved the needle in the least bit to this point. I know Mario is an intense dude, the practices are intense, he doesn’t accept complacency, or mediocrity. All that stuff. You can’t play football half-assed. I get all that. But I just wonder, even subconsciously, if the kids kind of feel the same way? We’ve been a 21+ point favorite in every game. And yes, I know Clemson sucks, and the line is big again. But it’s still Clemson. That logo still gets your attention. It’s our first Saturday night, primetime game, coast to coast national TV, marquee contest.

Am I totally insane for thinking that maybe this is one we *really* get up for and it has our full, full attention. We have a bye next week. There’s nothing on the immediate horizon to look forward to. Again, I know this is dumb and pie in the sky optimism, but a part of me thinks this team is finally ready to explode against a “name brand” opponent and we see the full potential Saturday night. We usually get up pretty well to play in big games. Maybe we actually treat this like one and put on a massive show and really open some eyes on Saturday night in front of the whole country.

The other games in primetime are ***. ESPN has BYU @ TCU. Fox has Texas Tech @ Colorado. ESPN2 has Arkansas @ Texas A&M. NBC has Washington @ USC. We are, by far, the biggest and best show in town. Every person who isn’t a vested fan of the teams above will have Miami on the main screen.

How bout Mario gets these boys to go out and put on a display for the world that we are, unmistakably, not to be ****ed with?
Click to expand...

Sure that would be nice and I know Clemson has issues, but despite our record and stats, we have some flaws in our team that - imo - would prevent us from demolishing clemson.

- Interior OL: We know we are flawed here and against good talent (Clemson has some dudes on that DL), it could be tough sledding. And, we're young so that's going to lead to mistakes both in pass pro and run. My hope is that by year end, we will be much improved. But right now, we have some issues.

- Pass rush: yes I know we had 44 pressures on CMU, but lack of consistent pass rush from our DL has plagued us a lot of the year. People seem to forget about that.

- LB play: this game could mark the beginning of benching either 1 or 9. Those guys are too slow to tackle Reynolds in the open field so I look for a guy like Pruitt to play more.

- Special teams: Punt coverage unit is absolutely gonna kill us at some point. Clemson has excellent STs - both on returns and pressure. Those are two areas we have stunk in and I fear that this will be an issue. If we keep up with a 1 gunner look and if the wrong guy is the gunner, someone is gonna break one. We've also been close to being blokced 1-2 times.

- Night game in bad weather - nobody knows what will happen.

Can we throttle them? Sure, but I don't think we are a team to be able to do that....yet. Too many holes in our team that need to be fixed.
 
AUcane said:
Sure that would be nice and I know Clemson has issues, but despite our record and stats, we have some flaws in our team that - imo - would prevent us from demolishing clemson.

- Interior OL: We know we are flawed here and against good talent (Clemson has some dudes on that DL), it could be tough sledding. And, we're young so that's going to lead to mistakes both in pass pro and run. My hope is that by year end, we will be much improved. But right now, we have some issues.

- Pass rush: yes I know we had 44 pressures on CMU, but lack of consistent pass rush from our DL has plagued us a lot of the year. People seem to forget about that.

- LB play: this game could mark the beginning of benching either 1 or 9. Those guys are too slow to tackle Reynolds in the open field so I look for a guy like Pruitt to play more.

- Special teams: Punt coverage unit is absolutely gonna kill us at some point. Clemson has excellent STs - both on returns and pressure. Those are two areas we have stunk in and I fear that this will be an issue. If we keep up with a 1 gunner look and if the wrong guy is the gunner, someone is gonna break one. We've also been close to being blokced 1-2 times.

- Night game in bad weather - nobody knows what will happen.

Can we throttle them? Sure, but I don't think we are a team to be able to do that....yet. Too many holes in our team that need to be fixed.
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The only thing that really has me concerned here is interior OL. I think they're going to win up front at times, because I don't think we're good at all on the internal OL. We've beaten this one to death and it's not even October yet, so I'm not going to go much more into it than I think the ceiling of this offense will be capped against good teams because the 3 kids inside (whoever they are) aren't going to be good enough to replicate what we had last year.

The others, meh. Our pass rush is fine, and against Clemson it'll be fine. Their OL stinks, their QB is worse. Even average pressure numbers will torpedo their offense.

LB play, again, I don't think they have the offense to take advantage of this area of concern. The only good players they have are on the outside.

Special teams, maybe. Have our coverage units stunk? I know we haven't played anyone as dynamic as Wesco, but we've had 2 punts returned in 3 FBS games, for a total of 14 yards. We've had 3 kickoffs returned for an 18 yard average. I'm not sure I'm losing sleep over that one, although our special teams in general, are, well, special, so I get it.

Weather? Definitely a factor, but I think we have a big advantage in our front 7 versus their OL, so if this turns into a game of mudball where we just play rugby scrum every play, I'm good with it. And I don't love the internal OL as I mentioned above, but when Congdon is in there, we should be able to move their DL in the run game. Also, who else would you want more in a slobberknocker than Mark Fletcher? Good luck trying to tackle that dude when you can't chop your feet and come downhill at him in a pouring rain. Meeting him in a hole when you're on your heels is a good recipe to get his cleats into your chest as he runs over your corpse.

If the weather is at least decent and the 3 kids inside can pass block adequately, we're going to score 30+ and win rather easily. Another thing to consider, whether it's bad weather or not. Clemson has stretches where they do nothing on offense and punt. They average 6 punts per game, 14th in the country (Miami is 110th, by the way). I'm fine with Malachi Toney having 6 chances to return a punt. If they stall quickly and have to punt in a driving rainstorm, good luck with that, too. They're 130th in the country in punting average. I'm feeling pretty good if they go 3 and out from their 20 and have to run their 39 yard average punter out there to kick the ball to Mali.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
The only thing that really has me concerned here is interior OL. I think they're going to win up front at times, because I don't think we're good at all on the internal OL. We've beaten this one to death and it's not even October yet, so I'm not going to go much more into it than I think the ceiling of this offense will be capped against good teams because the 3 kids inside (whoever they are) aren't going to be good enough to replicate what we had last year.

The others, meh. Our pass rush is fine, and against Clemson it'll be fine. Their OL stinks, their QB is worse. Even average pressure numbers will torpedo their offense.

LB play, again, I don't think they have the offense to take advantage of this area of concern. The only good players they have are on the outside.

Special teams, maybe. Have our coverage units stunk? I know we haven't played anyone as dynamic as Wesco, but we've had 2 punts returned in 3 FBS games, for a total of 14 yards. We've had 3 kickoffs returned for an 18 yard average. I'm not sure I'm losing sleep over that one, although our special teams in general, are, well, special, so I get it.

Weather? Definitely a factor, but I think we have a big advantage in our front 7 versus their OL, so if this turns into a game of mudball where we just play rugby scrum every play, I'm good with it. And I don't love the internal OL as I mentioned above, but when Congdon is in there, we should be able to move their DL in the run game. Also, who else would you want more in a slobberknocker than Mark Fletcher? Good luck trying to tackle that dude when you can't chop your feet and come downhill at him in a pouring rain. Meeting him in a hole when you're on your heels is a good recipe to get his cleats into your chest as he runs over your corpse.

If the weather is at least decent and the 3 kids inside can pass block adequately, we're going to score 30+ and win rather easily. Another thing to consider, whether it's bad weather or not. Clemson has stretches where they do nothing on offense and punt. They average 6 punts per game, 14th in the country (Miami is 110th, by the way). I'm fine with Malachi Toney having 6 chances to return a punt. If they stall quickly and have to punt in a driving rainstorm, good luck with that, too. They're 130th in the country in punting average. I'm feeling pretty good if they go 3 and out from their 20 and have to run their 39 yard average punter out there to kick the ball to Mali.
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Agree. Their DL versus out OL gives me concerns. There’s potential problems. Pass blocking and running lanes could be an issue
 
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