Four Downs: No. 19 Clemson wins sixth straight in ugly fashion at Wake Forest
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- It wasn't pretty for No. 19 Clemson (7-2, 6-1 ACC), but ultimately, the Tigers pulled away from Wake Forest (2-7, 0-5 ACC) for a 34-20 win. Plenty of teams have come to Winston-Salem before and not managed to do that, and the Tigers overcame a combination of weirdness, sloppiness and general sleepiness to escape with a victory.
If you need a case against scoring defense as a useful statistic, look no further than this game. Clemson might have given up 20 points to Wake Forest, but they held the hapless Deacs to just 119 total yards. Wake had 15 first downs -- six of them were on Clemson penalties. Wake finished with seven yards rushing on 34 attempts (29 attempts for 48 yards without sack yardage).
Yes, Wake Forest scored 20 points, which might cause a casual observer to raise an eyebrow. But those touchdowns came on their only two drives that began in Clemson territory (both off of Clemson's only two turnovers). One drive started at the Clemson 10-yard line.
The defense just kept coming. Wake was 4-of-6 on third down in the first quarter and had five total first downs and 87 total yards. The rest of the game, Wake converted 0-of-10 third down tries, had 10 more first downs (multiple via penalty) and would accumulate 32 yards the rest of the way.
Clemson finished with five sacks, 13 tackles for loss and five pass breakups. Sometimes, a team will help you with mistakes. Wake didn't make any as far as turnovers go, and so this defense had to do it the hard way.
This unit has certainly come a long way from the group that gave up 70 points to West Virginia back in the 2012 Orange Bowl.
"I've been high on our defense for the last couple years and our potential defensively. As I've said many times and as I said in the preseason, this I think is the most complete defense that we've had, just with all three levels, with the combination of talent, depth and experience," Swinney said.
"We didn't necessarily play our best tonight, but at the end of the day when the opponent only gets 119 yards, you're going to win a lot of games. I think that in itself tells it: okay, hey, we're No. 1 in the country in defense, we gave up 119 yards, but I don't think anybody in our locker room down there feels like we played great tonight defensively. I think that's the best part about it.
"We've got a group that is hungry, a group that has set a high standard and they're not satisfied with some of the mistakes that we made tonight."
Wake isn't very good on offense, and that's hardly breaking news. But Clemson's defense has been fantastic all year long, and they've finally got something tangible to show for it after this game.
For now, anyway.
"It's November 6. I'd like for us to be No. 1 in the country at the end of November. So we'll see if we can have three more great game days on defense and it's a great opportunity for those guys. They certainly are aware that they're competing to be the best defense in the country," Swinney said.
Early on, things didn't look promising. Clemson couldn't generate much of anything on offense. Knowing he offense had been that much more dynamic with Watson at the helm had to at least tempt Swinney and offensive coordinator Chad Morris to break the glass.
But Swinney and Clemson didn't get to this point by panicking, and that wasn't part of the game plan.
Clemson had just 35 total yards on 12 plays after the first quarter with two first downs.
By the end of the game, Clemson had piled up 427 yards on 79 plays and had 20 first downs.
Stoudt, who Swinney called a "granddaddy longlegs" as a runner, just kind of makes the plays his team needs when his team needs them -- or at least he has the last few weeks. While he is clearly not as dynamic an athlete or a passer as Watson, the senior made plays on big third and fourth downs when the Tigers had to have them.
Then once the offense adjusted -- Clemson finished with 145 yards rushing, many of which were hard-earned (with the occasional big play sprinkled in) -- you had Clemson's best offensive performance since Watson's injury (which happened in the first quarter against Louisville).
"Offensively, just some tremendous plays. You saw the explosiveness back in our offense that we hadn't had," Swinney said. "I love the confidence that I saw in those guys. I saw it really to be honest with you in the second half of our last ballgame, and we talked about all week about picking up where we left off. It was a very good game offensively in a lot of ways."
Stoudt finished with three touchdown passes to just one interception. Since Watson's injury against Louisville -- and including that game, since Stoudt played most of it -- Clemson has had four games now where the offense has looked relatively pedestrian.
But, here's the thing -- Clemson has won all four anyway. And they likely wouldn't have without Stoudt.
Ultimately, that's why Swinney said he wasn't really all that tempted to break the emergency glass on Watson.
"I thought Cole was playing very well. We were in great rhythm offensively, tremendous rhythm. We were keeping them off-balance. We hit some plays downfield. Cole missed a couple of throws. He had 2-3 guys open that he just missed it, but y'all were out there. There was a lot of wind. There was a ton of wind and not exactly ideal throwing conditions," Swinney said.
Stoudt has gotten them through this stretch. But now Watson will be back to finish it.
"Deshaun was ready. In fact, I asked him in the third quarter (when Stoudt hurt his shoulder briefly), 'hey, you ready to go if we need you?' and he said, 'Yes sir, I'm ready to go.' Our goal was to try to not play him if we could. He'll be ready to go come Monday and it'll be really good to have him back," Swinney said.
"He's got to practice well. He's our starter. He's earned the job. You don't lose the job because you break a finger. He's back and we'll put him back out there Monday. Practice matters. Practice counts. So hopefully, he'll have a great week of practice and we'll go from there."
Watson may be the superior talent, but nothing is going to get easier in these last few games for Clemson.
Clemson had two turnovers on the night to go with eight penalties for 75 yards. Those turnovers led directly to 14 Wake Forest points, and the penalties often prolonged Wake Forest drives. Clemson's mistakes were sometimes less noticeable, too, like freshman receiver Artavis Scott (who ended up with eight catches for 122 yards) dropping a pitch in the red zone in the first half, or Stoudt taking a sack to move out of field-goal range.
But ultimately, while the Tigers have been winning ugly lately, they're still winning.
Next Saturday, though, the Tigers will travel to a red-hot Georgia Tech team, then play Georgia State the week before they host South Carolina, a team they haven't beaten in the last five tries.
South Carolina started the season ranked, and even got a big home win over Georgia. Clemson lost to Georgia early and looked lost on offense. The two teams have mostly flipped places since then, and yet, there's no guarantee in a rivalry game.
Swinney didn't directly mention South Carolina -- he did mention Georgia Tech, since they're the next opponent -- but it's there. It's always there, even if it's not explicitly said.
"We're going to be judged on how we finish. We don't have a lot of time left in our season. We've got to come back to work and correct some of the mistakes, clean up some of the miscues," Swinney said.
When asked if his team could keep "playing with fire" in these close wins, Swinney answered it as simply as he could: "We're going to find out," he said.
"We've got three left and we need to be at our best in the month of November. That's when good teams kind of separate from the pack. All you can do is go play the game and get prepared and go see what happens. But at the end of the day, you just want to find a way to win.
"Our seniors are 8-1 in their career in games that are a touchdown or less, so they've found a way to win close ones."
"I'm certainly very proud of the effort," Clawson said. "I don't think we back down from anybody. That game is 20-20 in the fourth quarter with a chance to win it."
It's going to take him awhile. That much was clear when Clemson's more physically gifted lines on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball wore steadily into the Deacs' fronts throughout the game, grinding them down to the point where they couldn't fight anymore.
Wake Forest's rushing offense has been historically bad all season, and Thursday was no different as the Deacs finished with seven yards rushing on 34 attempts. Wake came into the game averaging 1.11 yards per carry, by far the fewest in the country.
"We were opportunistic on offense. We found a way to score points, but once again every time we play an ACC-level defense, we just cannot run the ball. We just get very overwhelmed up front," Clawson said.
"We just give up a lot of penetration, a lot of push. The backs have to make cuts before they get to the line of scrimmage, and we've run different schemes, but I don't care what run play you run, at some point you've got to get some movement, some push, and that's been an issue all year."
It won't be in the future, probably. It's unfortuante that Wake's defense, which is actually very good -- particularly cornerback Kevin Johnson, who finished with an interception and a fumble recovery -- doesn't have much support.
But freshman quarterback John Wolford has continued to go back out there in spite of the beating he's taken week in and week out, and Clawson has shown that he can gameplan pretty well. Now, it's just a matter of getting personnel.
Because Wake Forest is always one of the more "pesky" teams to play in the ACC.
"It was one of those frustrating games for four quarters and a lot of times when you play Wake Forest, it is," Swinney said. "They're a team that fights with everything they have, and always have."
