Who Are the Clemson Tigers?

Well, they’re 4-0 all-time against the Buckeyes, that’s who they are… one game where Woody Hayes neck-punched a dude, and the rest more recently. The Tigers are favored by 7.5 points. And based on the way the Bucks have played the last few games, that doesn’t seem like it’s enough? I would have thought we’d be +10. But Trey Sermon looked amazing against Northwestern and if we’ve got Justin Fields healthy and the rest of our dudes actually playing, perhaps we’ve got a shot. I’ve already written about Dabo and His Bullshit, so now I’d like to dive into the rest of the team. We’ve got 3 or 4 days to try to figure out how to beat our #1 Rival, so let’s get to it!

Trevor Lawrence. Never trust a dude with 2 first names. As you might expect, Trevor was a pretty good high school football player in Georgia – breaking records, winning state titles, etc. Your pretty typical five star recruit who’s 6 foot 6 with long blond hair whose only loss in college is to the guy that had the best season of any quarterback in NCAA history.

Some quick stats: Trevor’s record as a starter for Clemson is 32-1, which is, you know, solid. 9698 passing yards for his career. 88 TD’s, 16 INTs. Also 17 rushing TD’s. And, he won the CFP title as a freshman in 2018 and his first loss as a college QB was in last year’s championship game against the aforementioned Joey B and the LSU Tigers.

The key to beating Trevor Lawrence is to give him Covid. Or to have Joe Burrow on the team, I guess. And to hope that when his wide receiver fumbles the ball in the Playoff Semifinal and the opposing team returns that fumble for a touchdown, the referees don’t inexplicably reverse the call to the bewilderment of all those watching.

Travis Etienne. Travis seems like he’s been at Clemson forever, because he has! 7th in the Heisman voting in 2018 and 9th in 2019, Travis has been piling up stats for 4 years. Almost 5000 yards career rushing. #32 in all-time rushing yards in NCAA history at this point. 77 total TDs. He’s got a lot of receiving yards this year, so maybe this year will be the year the Buckeye Defense learns running backs can catch the ball out of the backfield. Crossing my fingers!

Amari Rodgers. Tee Martin’s son! 1000 yards receiving and 7 TD’s. All ACC First Team in 2020.

Cornell Powell. Not Tee Martin’s son, presumably. 750 yards and 5 TD’s.

Amari and Cornell + Etienne are the main receiving threats, unless you count Will (5′ 9″) and Drew (5′ 8″) Swinney. It’s nice they get to hang out with the big kids.

Justyn Ross, famous for “fumbling” the ball last year against the Bucks, is out for the season with a spinal problem of some sort. It wasn’t his fault the refs overturned a clear fumble and gave the game to Clemson and hopefully he makes a full recovery! Ross had almost 2000 yards receiving and 17 TD’s in his first 2 years at Clemson, so it’s nice that he’s sipping Mai Tai’s and not torching us this week.

Other offense: Right Tackle Jordan McFadden is all ACC 2nd team. Hardly any other accolades for the offense. Maybe our D-Line and linebackers can hound Trevor enough to shake things up?

On to the defense – the Defensive Coordinator is Brent Venables. The reason we know this is ESPN has mandated that Chris and Kirk say his name 218 times per football game. He’s the 4th highest paid assistant coach in the country at over $2M per year. That’s a lot of money for an assistant coach! And both his kids play at Clemson too! What the hell is happening.

The tigers lost several players on defense, including first round picks LB Isaiah Simmons (8th pick to the Cardinals) and defensive back AJ Terrell (16th pick to the Falcons). And they don’t have any all Americans on that side of the ball. But they do have a bunch of dudes on the all-ACC teams, particularly at linebacker.

• Brian Bresee is honorable mention on the defensive line
• Myles Murphy is 3rd Team on the D line.
• Mike Jones – 2nd Team Linebacker
• James Skalski – 2nd Team Linebacker
• Jake Venables – 3rd Team Linebacker. Great, we’ll get to hear his name 400 times.
• Derion Kendrick – 1st Team Cornerback.
• Nolan Turner – 1st Team Safety
• Andrew Booth Jr – 2nd Team “Flex Defense,” whatever that means. Booth Jr may or may not be related to the guy who shot Lincoln. Who can say?

So – the comprehensive game plan for the Buckeyes, that Coach Day is sure to adopt, as laid out above:

1. Be 100% healthy.
2. Give Trevor Covid.
3. Don’t let Etienne get sneaky receptions out of the backfield,
4. And, for the love of god, whatever you do, don’t let the Venables or Swinney kids do anything or we’ll never hear the end of it.

Seems full proof. Fool proof?

-Eric