Thoughts after the UNC Debacle

First, credit must be given to NC and Mack Brown, they outplayed us and deserved to win the game. Clemson never really matched their intensity overall. That is on Dabo himself for not having us up for the game, but NC deserved to win and we really didn't. Sam Howell is a good Qb and he'll take NC far over his career in Chapel Hill if Mack recruits some weapons for him.

But I also know the rosters and NC shouldn't have even made it close today. We played like shit and it showed in the scoreboard. Our coaches did not do a great job this week getting us ready.

Clemson's defense had another good day. Venables earned another raise for keeping it close while the offense figured out how to not shoot themselves in the foot.

AJ Terrell had one really bad play, he just got beat for the first TD. It happens. AJ is a good player. The D gave up a score on a short field after Etienne fumbled, and then one bad drive at the end of the game where they had to convert a couple 4th downs. Skeletor figured it out after the first quarter and held them down until the end. Thats good enough to win a game, but once again, our D should not be saving our ass every week with the talent that is on this offense.

Clemson's offense had an awful day. I'm putting this one on the staff overall.

Far too often, when I hear the offensive coaches talk in the post game I hear phrases like these:
"Well they were playing us tight at the line, so we couldnt do ____"
"Well they were doing bump & run so we couldn't _____"
"Well they were taking away the run so we didn't ______"

I don't buy us requiring to be a reactive offense in terms of playcalling.  We have NFL-caliber players at nearly every position, and yet we only do things based on their alignment? If a team plays 6 in the box, we refuse to run. If they play bump & run we refuse to challenge that. If they play 2-high, we can't attack the middle or the sidelines.

Bateman called C2 high all day, which says "we dare you to run, we don't think you can" and yet we DONT give the ball to Etienne? Are you shitting me? A Heisman caliber RB and we don't give him the ball because A&M has 6 in the box and NC plays 2-high all day? When your RB is averaging 5-6 a touch, and they show C2, what do you do? You give him the damn ball. Dabo said afterwards they were inviting us to run, but watching the game, I don't see where the runs were called. I dont know what ScElliott are looking at.

We can dictate how the defense plays us. We're that talented. If they give you 2-high, you attack the MOF coverage with a TE and you run the damn ball until they drop that safety down into the box, then you bust them with a 50 yard pass to Ngata once they start playing 1-high. We don't do that. We refuse to attack what they give us to make them play us the way we'd like. Instead, we throw a screen, which a monkey can read the way we run them, never hit a TE and don't even call the plays for Etienne to bust their ass. Once he busts one they will drop that safety and hit Higgins/Ross, or you keep calling the run and let Etienne destroy them. It appears to me that we see a certain coverage and ScElliott don't adjust to it, they don't know what to do and it shows.

Clemson's OL didn't match NC's intensity up front. We didn't care as much. The Tarholes stunted and stemmed all day, and far too often I see a guy coming up the A-gap and a Center letting him go and the RB overmatched. No adjustment was made.

False starts on 3rd & short are just inexcusable. This killed a drive or two. Don't tell me its too loud, its Kenan Stadium and its half orange. We just weren't interested in being there today. That one is definitely on the staff, its not a problem we've really had under Dabo.
lem
Historically we've self-scouted in the bye week and figured out what was done, hopefull y theres no prob