Fair enough. Let me ask you something. Did you you even think that the team had a shot of winning vs Clemson’s top 5 defense without TVD??? If yes then cool but there was the majority of the TVD fan club talking about a for sure L. Now come the excuses of the defense playing lights out and everyone playing hard to get Emory a W practically saving him and not giving him his due credit. Sad and funny to see all these Canes fans so negative about a win because they feel TVD gives us the best chance to win SMDH. TVD was very healthy going into GTech and he made costly mistakes that eventually focked us! I remember last year’s Texas A&M game which I attended and tell me how those stats for TVD look compared to Emory vs Clemson. Enough said
I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but it's not even comparable. It's like two kids riding bikes. One of them has training wheels on the back tire. People are saying the kid with training wheels rides his bike just as good as the kid without them. People are losing their mind because we won.
The stats of TVD and Emory are NOT comparable. 75% of Emory's passes were screen passes. Dawson was purposely limiting risk with Emory.
Emory did what was asked of him. If we put the cuffs on TVD limiting his throws and had him execute the same game plan, it would have been the same result. People would say he would have thrown multiple interceptions, etc. I disagree. Were they saying that before the GT game when he had 11 TDs and 1 INT? No.
I'm pragmatic and see it for what it is. We can win when our defense plays at a high level dominating the LoS, our offensive line dominates where we can run the ball 75% of the time for over 200 yards, and the QB makes a limited number throws without turning the ball over.
Emory has skills. I think he has a bright future, but he is not at a level you can hand him the keys and say, "Go win us the game." If we were down 17 instead of 10, the game might have had a completely different outcome. Emory would have had to throw the ball 75% of the time downfield into tight coverage which may have killed his confidence if he had thrown multiple interceptions in that situation.
Those upset with Mario for not being more aggressive at the end of the 4th quarter just don't get it. We don't know how much of a 2-minute drill Emory had practiced. Our game plan was to run the ball 75% of the time with a very conservative short passing game. Now, your asking a true freshman QB to drop back and pass 90% on a drive calling a bunch of plays and passing routes that he hasn't run and doesn't have the timing with his WRs. It's just a recipe to fail and Mario & Dawson were smart enough to know it even if our fans are not. They got a 1st down and then took way too much time getting off the next play. With 22 seconds left, there's no reason to risk a turnover when you have very little chance to get into FG range. You could argue that they should have at least ran a faster offense even if they were going to run the ball. That had risk as well. A quick 3 and out, then Clemson gets the ball back with a chance to win in regulation. It was better for Emory and the team to operate at the 25 in OT where we could continue to run the ball. We had the momentum and had shut down Clemson in the 4th Qtr. It was the smart thing to do.
The bottom line is that we won. We won with a very conservative game plan. Let's all be realistic about what we saw and the plays that were executed.