Clemson on Clemson: Notes from their 247 reporters

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From Bronco Mendenhall's press conference last night- he was asked about using two of his 3 timeouts so early in the first half:

On effect of using timeouts in the first half

“Really not that much. Here is the simple thought behind that. Clemson is hopeful to have shock and awe right from the beginning and put you on your heels and never let you recover. I was absolutely willing to use timeouts and slow the pace to make sure our guys were ready, and they were. That was absolutely something that we would do again and was prepared to do because of how fast, how explosive and how easily they jump out on teams so quickly. Looking to stall and use them if we needed to and I believe we needed to.”
I completely agree. If you look back at the last 2 games we played them, that's what they do. They will try to "shock and awe" us in the 1st qtr. I remember the trick play with Desean Watson where the offensive line didn't move on the snap and our defense was completely confused. Meanwhile, Watson hit his wide open TE for a TD. We never recovered from the beginning of the 59-0 beatdown.

So, Clemson will come out with some type of trick big play to shock us. Make us **** down our leg and play more conservatively. I hope we don't play this soft coverage that everyone on CIS is talking about. We did that at Louisville and let them matriculate down the field for easy TDs in the 3rd and 4th quarters. Lawrence will carve us up if we play soft coverage. I don't want to go down that way. Bring the fight to them. We can play press man under with 2 safeties over the top to prevent the big plays. If we play soft zone 10 yards off the ball like the 2017 ACC title game, we get carved up tackling them after they've made the catch for 1st downs.

I expect Venables to have his defense blitzing early and often. They'll try to create big negative plays to get our offense off schedule and off the field.

We need to punch back and not be the one taking all the blows. We need to make them pay for blitzing. We need to blow up their trick plays on offense. Our DEs need to set the edge and force Etienne to run between the tackles where we can gang up on him. We have to get pressure with the front 4 and make Lawrence uncomfortable. That means press coverage to keep the ball in his hands longer.

We have the dudes to compete. We don't need to do anything outside of our DNA. Just do what we do and know it's good enough to win.

Let's GO!!!!
 
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The problem is when you've been on a run like Clemson has the last couple years, boredom and complacency become an issue. The only thing that seems to change that is big games.

If they view us as a big game, theyll be ready for us. We just have to go out and execute.
They ain't got the horses to just turn it one like that; especially against a team full of talented dudes with something to prove.

jonah hill GIF
 
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But are they going to be ready for an uptempo pace. If you go watch games versus teams that ran uptempo offenses gave Clemson defense and Venables trouble. LSU and UNC did just that!
From start to the last whistle we should be tempo mode ....if their 1s can keep up with that then so be it.
 
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