Some game thoughts

[OttoinGrotto]

- Awesome to see the defense play well against a team with such individual talents. That's an amazing turnaround from last season. Solid tackling, great job sending pressure, good in coverage. The tackling really impressed me though. This might be the best tackling defense I've seen from our team, ever.

- It's pretty clear Ish has a rep and the refs aren't afraid to throw a flag on him. Probably too eager to do that. I think he got robbed on the TD that was taken away.

- Did not anticipate that the running game would show signs of life in the middle of the season. Against Clemson.

- I kinda wonder how little confidence Dabo has in his backup QBs. Bryant is not a guy yet that's going to sling the ball around a ton. The drive that knocked him out, he didn't look right. At all. I'm not sure why coaches leave QBs in that are clearly distressed. Bryant looked like RGIII getting battered while Shanahan left him in.

- I didn't expect much from Robinson. I was wrong. He keeps growing, he'll be our best defensive end since Chandler Jones.

- That's a mentally strong team. I mentioned it in another thread, but losing Ish's TD to a penalty and then having the fumble go for 6 was the type of swing that can shut the door on a game. They stayed in it.

- We are seeing that there's something to Babers' S&C. They don't look tired.

- When we played to favor the defense, we got a lot of scores that were close that were fool's gold. Now that we play to favor the offense, we can win.

- Etienne gave me dreams of Jawhar Jordan turning 2 yard gains into 10 on speed alone.

 

[Toga]

Props to Strickland for running hard.

 

[OrangeDW]

Props to Strickland for running hard.

Yup. Keeping his footing and scoring that TD to get us the lead right away was huge. And then he ran hard all day. Props to the OL too for getting some push at times against a monstrous DL. Never would’ve expected that. Gotta love sports.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Oh, also, great to have a Custis sighting. He can still make an impact this season, and we need him next year.

Did Pickard end up playing?

 

[Shark58]

we went toe to toe with one of the big boys and truly outplayed them

 

[CbusCuse]

Shocking that we had more rushing yards than Clemson in this game. Who would have bet on that? And it wasn't just Dungey as our RB's averaged like mid 4's per carry. Another stunning point is we won this game while losing the turnover margin and that turnover was a 60 yard scoop and score by Clemson. Who would of thunk it? Amazing game.

 

[Scooch]

What I love is that this win was no fluke. We gave up the only turnover, and it was for a score. We go hit with a bajillion penalties. We didn’t play a perfect game. Neither did they. I’m sure they’re bemoaning the missed FGs and Bryant’s injury. But we got hosed out of a TD. It all evened out. And we just straight up beat ‘em.

 

[PAcuse]

- They NEVER had the lead. HUGE.

 

[Scooch]

- They NEVER had the lead. HUGE.

They didn’t know.

 

[Deuga]

The growth of our running game the past two weeks has been amazing. I really thought that having a solid running game would be a goal best left for next season. When we started having success rushing against Pitt last weekend, I passed it off because Pitt hasn't got a huge D line. I never expected us to be effective rushing against Clemson.

We just forced Mark Richt to change his defensive game prep to respect the run.

 

[PhatOrange]

Just watched Ish's TD interference replay and he did get robbed. His hands were on the guy but he did not push off. However, they gave him one two plays earlier when he should've been called imo and they flagged the defender instead.

 

[anomander]

Thorough domination. Literally every aspect of the game. It really shouldn't even of been close either. BS offensive PI against Ish and then a fluke fumble that hopped right into the guys arms for a TD on the next play. Very mentally tough to keep fighting from that. I know I was deflated and b!tched for the next 2 quarters. This is one hell of a team that you have seen start to put it together in losses on the road vs LSU and NCST (both who should end the season as top 15 teams) and then against Pitt. There is no reason we can't make a run at the division.

 

[Cusefan69]

Really wasn't a b.s. call on ish...there were 2 times he clearly pushed for separation...was there and was clear as day...not arguing, just saying...only issue I had with the refs this game was ball placements...I didn't see much go favorably in that regard...otherwise I thought the refs were pretty reasonable...

 

[AAM62]

- Awesome to see the defense play well against a team with such individual talents. That's an amazing turnaround from last season. Solid tackling, great job sending pressure, good in coverage. The tackling really impressed me though. This might be the best tackling defense I've seen from our team, ever.

- It's pretty clear Ish has a rep and the refs aren't afraid to throw a flag on him. Probably too eager to do that. I think he got robbed on the TD that was taken away.

- Did not anticipate that the running game would show signs of life in the middle of the season. Against Clemson.

- I kinda wonder how little confidence Dabo has in his backup QBs. Bryant is not a guy yet that's going to sling the ball around a ton. The drive that knocked him out, he didn't look right. At all. I'm not sure why coaches leave QBs in that are clearly distressed. Bryant looked like RGIII getting battered while Shanahan left him in.

- I didn't expect much from Robinson. I was wrong. He keeps growing, he'll be our best defensive end since Chandler Jones.

- That's a mentally strong team. I mentioned it in another thread, but losing Ish's TD to a penalty and then having the fumble go for 6 was the type of swing that can shut the door on a game. They stayed in it.

- We are seeing that there's something to Babers' S&C. They don't look tired.

- When we played to favor the defense, we got a lot of scores that were close that were fool's gold. Now that we play to favor the offense, we can win.

- Etienne gave me dreams of Jawhar Jordan turning 2 yard gains into 10 on speed alone.

Except etienne is 210 lbs

 

[SUforme]

Can someone explain why it seems we keep getting screwed on the injury and returning to the field after a TO and not be allowed to do so? Week after week opponent or not I have seen players get hurt call a TO and are able to return. What gives?

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Also, I feel so much more confident when we start the game with the ball.

 

[SoBeCuse]

Great post. With the exception of Etienne and Renfrow’s all around skillset; I thought our guys looked really terrific and matched them athletically generally on both sides. Conditioning and S&C improvements are noticeable. Really awesome win today. Well deserved.

 

[Deuga]

This is one hell of a team that you have seen start to put it together in losses on the road vs LSU and NCST (both who should end the season as top 15 teams) and then against Pitt. There is no reason we can't make a run at the division.

Until we lose another game, your right: NC St has no losses but has to play Clemson (right after playing ND). Everyone else at the moment has two losses, except us.

 

[Chip]

You know it’s a great game when there are so many individual players to single out, you feel like you’re naming the whole team.

Great team effort.

I think Ish is targeted now by the refs, and worse we’re going to see DBs take a dive any time he adjusts to the football.

Hopefully they’ll be bad dives like Erv on that play that should have been called D holding. But when you over sell it, there’s a good chance they won’t call it. Unless you’re a pretend tough guy like Chubb.

 

[OrangeFoo]

Can someone explain why it seems we keep getting screwed on the injury and returning to the field after a TO and not be allowed to do so? Week after week opponent or not I have seen players get hurt call a TO and are able to return. What gives?

Announcers claimed that even if a timeout is taken the player has to sit one play out.

 

[Chip]

Can someone explain why it seems we keep getting screwed on the injury and returning to the field after a TO and not be allowed to do so? Week after week opponent or not I have seen players get hurt call a TO and are able to return. What gives?

Injury timeout vs your helmet came off momentary stoppage of play (where you can use a timeout and get him back out there).

Last night was clear but LSU was not.

 

[Finwad32]

Injury timeout vs your helmet came off momentary stoppage of play (where you can use a timeout and get him back out there).

Last night was clear but LSU was not.

Chip , I feel like I'm following you around this morning... You're at the bottom of every thread I'm opening and I can't help but hit the like button. I'm still just so damn happy.

 

[Millhouse]

Chip , I feel like I'm following you around this morning... You're at the bottom of every thread I'm open toing and I can't help but hit the like button. I'm still just so damn happy.

Chip is at the bottom of lots of stuff

 

[Chip]

Chip , I feel like I'm following you around this morning... You're at the bottom of every thread I'm opening and I can't help but hit the like button. I'm still just so damn happy.

I’m supposed to be watching practice but I’m mostly just chugging coffee and catching up on the board. We talkin’ ‘bout practice.

 

[OrangeTarheel]

I feel like we are lucky Etienne has trouble blocking (per announcers) because he is amazingly fast. And like OP th starting QB was clearly uncomfortable and was having ankle trouble before he was concussed. I was saying before that play that I hoped they kept him in on the bum ankle because h was not playing 100%.

Now for us - can anyone believe Clemson faked a punt against us? A sign of the position they were in by the end of the game. We defended it well I thought, glad we didn't get a pick off that.

And resilience ... we gave them two shots from our 45 yard line in the second half. And we had a drive that went backwards 32 yards. I was wondering whether we were done at that point but the fight in these kids was intense. We can win any game moving forward, don't think we will but we have proof of concept.

And Dabo says in post game - "They out coached us"