Clemson FSU prediction

I thought this week I would get a head start on the Clemson predictions, so here it is. First Clemson is a good football team and if we walk away with a win then it would be considered quality win. Personally the issues that they have had in years have been more of a coaching problem and looking at the stats you can clearly see were their issues are. It seems that there problems were not with getting players to produce but rather knowing when to get production from certain players. The best example I have to show what I mean is Davis and Spiller. Did you know that neither of these guys have had a 1000 yard season yet? That kind of surprises me considering how much hype they have had throughout the years. Looking at their numbers they produce the yardage but for some reason they are not used very much. Spiller gets about 8 carries a game and Davis gets about 11 carries a game. Look these guys are play makers they need to be touching the ball several more times than that. But that is just me.

Opponent Summary

Don’t be surprised is Clemson tries to use the option with Korn. Why would they do that you may ask? Because of the way we got handled against the option last week. And Clemson’s Coach is interviewing for a job and he needs to show the boosters he is willing to do whatever it takes to win games, including doing something out of the ordinary. You already know about Davis and Spiller, but Ford and Kelly might prove to give us more issues then Davis and Spiller. Kelly stands at 6’5’’ 190 lb. and Ford is a speedy guy at 5’10’’ 185. Whoever is covering Kelly is going to have a hell of a time covering him. It will be important to get pressure on the QB in order to prevent a big play from this guy. Which brings me to my next point and that is their OL versus our DL. Look our DL is going to come out hungry. Clemson has given up 14 sacks for 102 yards. We have delivered 22 sacks for 162 yards. This is going to be key for our defense if we expect to win this game. Another point to illustrate Clemson has lost almost 20% of their rushing yards due to TFL.

 

What to expect?

Jimbo will try to establish the run as always (I know you were looking for something different here). Don’t think we will see any surprises here. We will probably run Thomas more and probably be running DVO more. And don’t be surprised to see DVO and Ponder on the field at the same time. The major weakness I see in the Clemson defensive team is 3^rd down conversions. Right now their defense has allowed 39% of 3^rd down to be converted. Also TOP, Clemson has allowed their opponents to have the ball 6 more minutes than they do. These two stats really play well to our strengths.

On defense if we put significant pressure on their OL we win the game. They play a type of offense that demands a good OL and right now they don’t have that. The QB has thrown 13 INTS, and the OL has given up 14 sacks. On top of that Clemson has lost almost 20% of their rushing yards due to TFL. Also Clemson hasn’t rushed for 1000 yards of total rushing yet for this season. Kind of interesting considering they have two very good RB. The major weakness I see is again 3^rd down conversions. Their offense has only been able to convert 30% of their 3^rd downs into 1^st downs. That does not look good going up against a defense that has only allowed 19%

 

Prediction

Our defense will be hungry and our offense will want to win this game more than ever. 35-16 FSU.

Simple Meaningless Thoughts

•  Jermain Thomas was a 3-star player our of HS. Ty Jones was a 2-star player

•  Last year we were able to score 32 TD's total for the year. This year we already have 33 TD's and we are on course to getting 50 TD's.

•  Before Saturday's game against GT we allowed opponents to rush for ~80 yards per game. Since then our OPP rushing averaged has changed to 105.9 yards per game.

•  On Saturday we rushed for 196 yards. Since sacks count as rushing yards in college football we would have rushed for 228 yards.

•  With Neisbit as the starting QB for GT, the GT offense was able to gain 321 yards of total offense. With him out of the game the offense was only able to muster 15 yards.

•  As I said in one of my earlier posts GT has scored on almost all of their drives that starts them at about their own 40 yards line or closer. But seem to struggle when they are placed further out. Going from scoring points 67% of the time from GT40 or closer to scoring less then 25% of the time further out. First four scoring drives: FLSt 46,GT 38,GT 39,FLSt 4.

• 5 of the 6 times GT was pushed further then then their 40 they scored 0 points. NOTE: This stat may not be a fair assessment because 3 of those drives did not include GT's starting QB. Still 2 of 3 with zero points shows something about their offense.
  

Concerning the Goal line call

First it was a good call on the goal line. 2nd and 3 on the 5 running the FB up the middle is a great call. Sims before has run the ball for 60 yards on 20 carries and has only lost 4 yards on those 20 carries. He is a good FB that will get us the yards we need in those short yardage situations. If Sims didn't fumble the ball we would have had it on the 1 yard line first and goal with one timeout and ~45 seconds remaining.

Why didn't Jimbo use Thomas? 

Probably because Thomas is part of the 2nd team offense and usually 2nd teamers are not part of goal line packages. Plus Thomas suffered from a concussion the week before and putting him in a power football situation might not be the best for him. 

Why didn't Jimbo use Smith?

Smith was used sparingly due to being beat up from the VT game. Using him in a power run might not have been a good idea.

Why didn't Jimbo use Holloway?

Probably because Holloway has only rush once for zero yards.

Why didn't Jimbo throw a jump ball to Carr?

It is 2nd and 3 if the ball is incomplete we now have a 3rd and 3 situation and a must 3rd down conversion. If we do not score a TD here we are forced to kick a FG to send it to overtime, where we have a high percentage chance of losing considering how we had defended the GT offense. Not to mention throwing the ball gives us a good chance of throwing an INT.

At the end of the day the fault falls on the shoulders of Mikey Andrews for not preparing our guys better.  I do not fault Sims at all for the lose. Our offense scored 28 points against a defense, that had only allowed 13 points per game.