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It doesn't seem to me like anyone was very interested in this one from the start, and a good curbstomping is what I love to see, but I was hoping for more fan reaction for the several must-get recruits who are in town today for the game. This was a key recruiting weekend with the presence of Montravious Adams, Bud Robinson, and Tramel Terry among others in Death Valley.
I was not expecting us to run the ball as great this week against Maryland as we did at Wallace Wade. Maryland's defense shows again that you do not need tremendous talent to be fundamentally sound up front and put up good defensive numbers. Other than Vellano, who pushed Freeman around as I expected, I don't think that any of them who are not injured are very talented players.
That said, I was not happy with the effort from our front blocking. I saw too many offensive linemen standing around while a RB fought for yardage. I recall a couple of plays where Ellington was in and fighting for yards while Gifford Timothy was standing up and playing pattycake with someone. It would be great if Joe Gore or Battle made enough improvement to push Timothy to do better in the run game. The right tackle is very important here and probably a key reason why we run the Power O play wider now than we did earlier this year.
Even though Maryland has had good passing defense overall, they are just no match for our skill players here. They weren't as dumb as Duke was, showing us C1 and C0, but they just don't have the horses to beat us in the back 4. Tajh and Stoudt both had pretty good ballgames.
Sammy's ankle injury did not seem serious, and Ellington looked fine in his limited action. This was more of a day for the backups to get reps, which is what I hoped for anyway.
I don't think we should take much of anything from this game with respect to the Clemson defense. Petty is not a QB, and they can't really install a new option offense within a week or two. He really can't throw the ball well and they lost their best WR and RB. They would not have scored the TD if not for the turnover.
Just one of those games that you knew was over before it started, and a good chance for reps for the 2nd and 3rd string that will benefit us next season. This was the 12th straight home victory, and we're 1 win away from hitting our every-season goal of 10 wins.