Clemson vs. Syracuse: 2nd Quarter Film Review

Folks, I have to come clean. I’m not much of a Halloween guy anymore. I used to go out with friends in college for multiple nights during Halloweek. However, those days are far in the rear view. I’m not much of a scary movie guy either. But there is one spooky tradition I have engaged in for most of the past few years during autumn: Syracuse v. Clemson. Though last year was an uninteresting blowout, the prior two years were two of the scariest Clemson games I’ve watched since Venables came on board. This year I thought I would be spared of the horror; I was assured that this year would be different due to the combination of attrition, inexperience, and just downright awful play. Yet, for the 2nd & 3rd quarters I was back inside that familiar nightmare.

So, of course, I’m assigned the quarter where Syracuse starts to make things scary for us. Not only did I have to watch it live, but I have to relive it like a Wes Craven directed Groundhog Day (the actual horror version of this movie is called Happy Death Day FWIW...I did not watch). However, upon review of the 2nd quarter, I really didn’t find it to be as frightening as I remembered it. The pick 6 was a fluke from the best quarterback in college football, and while the blocked kicks/punts are happening a little too frequently recently to wonder if they’re also flukes, I expect those to regress to the mean of “not happening ever.” Other than that, I think we did a decent job moving the ball despite drops, a few errant throws, and Etienne having to sit snaps out. As Alex said in his review, the defensive woes mostly came down to our three best defensive players being out, and the inexperience provided some...interesting pursuit angles against the run. However, part of it was #34 Sean Tucker making some magic happen. Syracuse leaned on their best player for much of the 2nd quarter and he rewarded them with a touchdown from good field position.

Let me know what STS nation has to say about the 2nd quarter in the comments.

Hard to say what went wrong here without knowing Venables’ call, but there are some things to point out to perhaps better explain why a bad Syracuse offense was able to get a 7yd TD run here. Clemson fans have been quick to point out that we were pretty hamstrung without Kendrick/Davis/Skalski, but I’m not sure their presence would have affected this play any differently. I suppose having Davis at Nose might have made a difference, but the center gets a suspiciously good block on Bresee (we won’t get into that, this is a Clemson blog after all, not an Ohio State one). You could place blame on Turner for missing the tackle, but I think the main issue is that Xavier Thomas probably needs to do better here. If you look at the endzone angle, he’s driving through to the B gap...until he moves to the edge for some reason. Now, I have an admittedly limited understanding of defensive play calling, but I’m not aware of anyone installing a scheme where the nose slants to the playside A from a 0, a DE slants to the D, and two interior gaps are taken by a safety and a LB. It doesn’t add up.

In my opinion, this is one of those plays of his where you wish he’d make the easy play before he reminds you that he’s T-16, a powerful android sent from the future to shred defenses, proving once again that he’s the greatest out-of-structure QB in the game right now. The play is a simple mesh sit concept against zone, and you’ll notice that it draws the linebackers down, creating space for Allen’s dig at the 10 yard line, which attacks the pocket of space between the linebackers and the safeties in Quarters coverage. Lawrence sees that the dig is about to come open after coming out of his 3-step drop, so he hitches and starts his windup...but pulls it down. I don’t have the all-22 angle of this play, so I can’t say that TL didn’t see Allen stumble, but it looks like he pulls the ball down because he sees the white of the DEs jersey getting off of a block and panics a bit. Now, personally, I’d like to see him finish through with the throw and take the contact, but I accept that I have never been on the receiving end of a 280lb man throwing me to the ground. However, he proves me wrong by scrambling to the left, which naturally creates a high difficulty throw for a right-handed QB, but STILL throws an absolute laser on a plate to Allen, who drops it.

The next play is the pick six. I’ll post a gif of it below if I have to, but there’s nothing to really analyze here, it’s just a bad throw. It happens. The most recent #1 pick, Joe Burrow, is one of the most accurate, smartest QBs in college football recently, and he threw a pick 6 in a bowl game. At least this was against Syracuse.