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Offense:
First drive on Offense, Rodriguez great seal block & 58 with great Blocks to help spring Barkate on the screen for 61yd TD.
2nd drive was Methodical
- Screen to Fletch
- Screen to Lofton
- Comeback to Upshaw
- Screen to Toney
- Crossing route to Barkate
But lead to a Mensah Sack.
What I've noticed thus far all season, is that the Offense operates at its best when they're striking fast & attacking with more defined concepts. The ball comes out quick & the WR's are able to make plays after the catch. I find that when tempo gets slowed down, the offensive efficiency grinds to a screeching halt & that's when we have fissures in the protection schemes, which allows for opposing Defenses to create pressure & get to Mensah.
McCoy got worked really bad on that Sack he gave up. Obviously, he's hurt & was toughening it out to come back in the game, but playing injured as an OL is actually a detriment to Mensah & the Offense in general. It's up to Mirabal & Mario to not let those guys go out there when they're hurt. I know toughness is Law, but there's a line of demarcation where Tuff blends into stupidity. Don't play hurt lineman, they put our QB at risk.
Phenomenal 3rd down catch by Toney.
Mensah laces a straight bullet under heavy duress, he gets absolutely walloped but delivered a great pass.
Ashton Hampton solidified himself as a top 15 pick in the draft & the best CB in country. As an Outside Field Corner, he actually followed Toney & played him in the Slot. That's not something that Ashton had done thus far in his career & the fact he stepped up & accepted the challenge against one of the best WR's in the Nation was huge for him. That was a big time matchup for him & he answered the call for the most part. Unfortunately, he plays for a really sh*tty team, but nonetheless, he made himself a lot of money this game, salute to him.
NFL Draft Files (@NFL_DF) on X
Malachi Toney vs. Ashton Hampton: - 3 targets - 1 catch - 8 receiving yards - 0 TDs - 2 pass breakups
Terrific Backshoulder to Barkate
He had a very good game & played great in his role as a Downfield playmaker.
I thought Elijah Lofton played his best game as a Hurricane against Wake, until this Clemson game. He was physical after the catch with his strong low center of gravity style running being able to lower his shoulder & deliver a punishing hit at the end of runs. He's also a good blocker at the point of attack. He's not a prototype TE, due to lack of ideal size & raw athletic ability, but he is a Kyle Juszczyk FB/TE2 type & he'll likely have have a place in the league playing in the role as a dirty work H-back guy. Obviously he'll come back next year, but I would be shocked if when it's his time to declare that he gets anything higher than a 4th round grade.
Mallory established himself as the starter next year. With ChaMar Brown coming back & Ty Keyes coming in, it doesn't look too great for Pringle. If he ever wants to be a feature back, he'll probably have to Portal.
The WR group looks like the brightest spot on the Offense in the future. As long as we can keep everybody, we have a very solid nucleus to build with for next year.
Coming into this week I felt we needed to invest heavily this offseason in OL if for nothing more than depth purposes. The Clemson game didn't change that for me, it reinforced it.
I thought the line played very well, especially Rodriguez, played absolutely outstanding considering his inconsistency throughout the year. Congdon & Buchanan played very well IMO.
My biggest takeaway from the game & the season thus far is that Offensively we're among the best in the Nation in explosive plays. We're 6th in the all of CFB in plays 20 yards or more, while averaging 9.6yds per pass & 8.21yds per play, which is 1st in the Nation. It's basically the 2024 Offense on steroids, the key difference is, it's a lot less boom or bust, in that this version of the Offense is less reliant on the QB to do all the heavy lifting & is far more versatile with better playmakers at WR.
Defense:
Chase Smith played his best game as a Hurricane. He was all over the field & was queued in on all of his reads.
He had an excellent play on a 4th & 1 stop where he Blasted through the C-Gap & blew up the play in the backfield to get a TFL & turnover on downs. He had a stellar performance.
Toure with the Hitstick!
Lightfoot absolutely DEMOLISHES Clemson OG.
Derailed their drive momentum & put them at 3rd & 13, which lead to fantastic Press Man coverage by Ryan Mack.
- Great footwork off the release to Outside leverage
- Backpedal into open & the immediately flipped into Phase
- Got his head to track the ball
- Closed the distance pressing towards the inside shoulder to get Chest to Chest
- Then made a great transition to the outside shoulder to make a play on the ball to get the PD.
Jarquez Carter played early & played well. He provided great depth in the run game & was active as a pass rusher.
Moten had some really good pressure on the interior & was major part in why we suffocated them in the run game. He was giving Clemson's interior line fits all game
Also forced the fumble on Tait
Heck of a tackle by Poyser on the Quick out to the TE early in the 1st quarter. Probably the best open field tackle I've seen him make.
Thornton & Wilson with the pressure, Scroggins gets the sack.
Defensive line created an immense amount of pressure. 9TFL's & 6 sacks. This was the DLines best performance of the season. There was a lot of worry about the DLine all year, but IMO they're far more deep & multifaceted with pass rushers & run stoppers. We go legitimately 10 deep on the front, where we genuinely have guys who would be full time starters as our backups. Jason Taylor, Damione Lewis & Heatherman have done a terrific job in cultivating a hyperaggressive DLine that causes havoc all game, but most importantly, these guys are interchangeable destroyers.
7TFL's & 5 sacks in the first half, only allowing a staggering 22yds. The official stat line was that we allowed 0 yards in the 1st half, because of -26yds on the sacks to Tait Reynolds.
The Run Defense thus far this season has been nothing short of championship level dominant. People peed their pants all offseason about the impossibility of replacing last year's DE's, but the DLine overall has been better IMO.
Damon Wilson with the sack in the Red Zone right before the end of the 1st half, to save a TD.
This was big because it was another Red Zone close drive by Clemson, where the Defense stepped up & kept them from visiting the End Zone.
This was Damon Wilson's money game. He absolutely WRECKED the game & put Clemson's OL in an absolute panic. He showed his relentless effort to get after the QB & finally brought out the bevvy of pass rush moves he had in his ****nal. Some people were highly critical of him after the Stanford game because he bullrushed all game, but it was beyond obvious if you watched the film from that game, he was just working on his Bullrush power technique. For anybody that questioned DWilson or felt as though he hadn't lived up to the billing, I encourage you go rewatch his Mizzou tape. Everything he did vs Clemson was stuff he had did plenty at Mizzou. I believe he wasn't trying to empty a whole mag against a much lesser opponent in the 1st game of the season on a team like Stanford. But when the lights were the brightest in a big game on the road, he showed yall exactly what he's made of.
All game long, we made it our purpose to not let Clemson sniff a TD. They didn't score a TD until the beginning of the 4th when the game was already over. In fact, this Defense has only surrendered 5 total TD's all season. This is a Championship level Defense, collectively better than last year's as a whole. The only major weak point is middle of the field & Nickel coverage, but other than that, in every other facet the Defense is better by my view.
The only thing that can really be a hindrance to us is health. We're absolutely beat to sh*t as a team right now & the Secondary is hanging on by a thread. Hopefully, Lightfoot isn't out for a significant amount of time & we can start getting some guys back, because despite whatever minor flaws the Defense has, this is the most cohesive unit on the team. They have what it takes to anchor the team for a long distance playoff run back to the Natty to make history as the first team in the playoff era to ever lose a title game & then come back the following year to win it all. And the major difference is that we have a much more viable & dangerous Offense on the other side of the ball to where the Defense doesn't have to carry them.
The formula has been defined. Score early with firepower & get a 3 score lead, then unleash the Defense to bury any chance the other team has in coming back & then use the run game late to kill the clock & lean on the opposing Defense to sledgehammer them into submission.
If we can keep our guys healthy & protect Mensah, there isn't a team in CFB I think matches up with us, with the exception of one.
But as always, just have to keep trekking & keep it one game at time. Every week is the start of a new season, so the goal remains the same...
1-0.
Go Canes
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