With Clemson's relatively soft schedule to close out ACC play, and considering our stated goal from the preseason, we promised to go ahead and look to South Carolina. As it looks today, the Vegas experts have the futures line on the Clemson/Scar is pretty much even. We believe that, even with Clemson's woes on both sides of the football, the Tigers can win this football game with careful game planning and execution.
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South Carolina has a very good defense--arguably the best we've seen this season. Here we'll give you an overview of who they are, what they do, and what Clemson has to do to keep their offensive juggernaut rolling.
First things first...Scar would like to line up and run the ball. Running the football effectively has helped the Gamecocks win a bunch of games the past 3-4 years so Clemson has to step up and limit their success in this area to win the football game. Scar, like any other offense, can keep any defense off balance if it can run the football.
This one will be short and sweet. We have discussed in depth here at STS all the strategic items written about below. Because of that, I leave the onus on you to either go through the archives or ask questions about concepts you don't completely understand.
South Carolina is most comfortable having Conner Shaw manage the football game and allowing him to make simple, short passes to their backs out of the backfield, tight ends sitting on little hook routes, and getting their receivers/tight ends open underneath on simple crossing routes. Shaw can stretch the field but often does it on well-designed plays that take advantage of what the defense gives this offense. Conner Shaw is very much unlike his predecessor Stephen Garcia in the fact that he is reluctant to simply throw the ball to a spot in space and doesn’t often force the ball. He wants to see his receiver open before he will pull the trigger. Needless to say, he is conservative in the pocket. The latter combined with his comfort in tucking the ball and taking off explains why he often seems gun shy and picks up chunks of yards with his legs.
We need to understand how South Carolina will line up and what tendencies we should take presnap from these formations. Here we'll pull the formations and and discuss the tendencies derived from these.
With Clemson's relatively soft schedule to close out ACC play, and considering our stated goal from the preseason, we promised to go ahead and look to South Carolina. As it looks today, the Vegas experts have the futures line on the Clemson/Scar is pretty much even. We believe that, even with Clemson's woes on both sides of the football, the Tigers can win this football game with careful game planning and execution. The first area we will discuss is the South Carolina offense. We feel that it is important to discuss the players, coaches, and general/overall tendencies up front and build upon these items.
