Tigers Wreck Georgia Tech 55-31

For 2.5 quarters the defense played really well and the offense lit up the GT secondary to build a lead that the Bumblebees could not surmount and the Tigers finished off the ACC schedule with a 55-31 win.

I'm very happy with the way Clemson's DLine dominated the Tech front for much of this game. We've always said two things that you must do to stop the option: stop the dive and slam the QB. In the 1st half we did just that, and because of the lead they got away from the Veer and Counter and instead decided to throw the ball, which makes their problem much worse. The scheme we played looked exactly the same as last season, but we were more aggressive in forcing the pitch and in the alley. The DTs were shooting the A/B gaps and stunting in and out, and Tech could do nothing about it. Corey Crawford and Vic Beasley were usually right on the spot with pressure outside to force poor decisions by Vad Lee and both of them executed the scrape/squeeze very well. The linebackers flowed on the veer about as well as they ever have against Johnson's scheme.

Where they beat us was in Safety support on some pitches to Robert Godhigh and simply fatigue by the defense as a whole group. We let up mentally and continued to hit our scoring defense figures with garbage late TDs. Its unfortunate because those first two quarters were about as textbook as I could've asked for from us.

Clemson's offense did what we needed to do against Tech by jumping out to a big lead and taking their preferred methods of ball-control off the table. Bomb after bomb extended the lead and Tech's pitiful DBs had no chance. They jumped a lot of routes and I'm surprised we didn't hit them for a few more bombs as a result.

Our OL was about as inconsistent as they usually are, and they still can't run block anyone. Its not going to change and I do not expect them to look much better against Citadel in run blocking either. Too many guys standing straight up, including the TEs. Too many sacks allowed again, but Tajh Boyd deserves blame for holding the ball too long as well as poor blocking by the RBs (and Chad should've kept them in to block more).

Despite the late scores allowed I'm pretty happy to get out of the GT game with a sizable margin of victory. Its always more fun to put 50 on the Nerds.