By Will Vandervort

CLEMSON — In the waning moments prior to Saturday’ game against Auburn, Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables said he felt a little bit alone. It wasn’t that he was alone, alone. His fellow coaches on the staff were there as were his players, of course.

He felt alone because this was all new for him. For the majority of his life he played and coached football in the Midwest. Now, just minutes before his first game as Clemson’s defensive coordinator he was in the heart of the South, Atlanta, GA coaching against a power from the Southeastern Conference.

“I told Coach (Dabo) Swinney that I felt kind of alone,” Venables said Tuesday. “It was kind of a weird feeling. I felt very alone before the game started. I had never been in that situation before. Although I was very familiar with everybody, it was just a different kind of feeling.”

But once the game kicked off, Venables said all those feelings disappeared, it became football again, and by the end of the evening after No. 12 Clemson rallied for a 26-19 victory, that feeling of being alone was gone.

“It was great to have our team rally together after fighting through some real adverse conditions, and beat a good team on that stage,” he said. “It was pretty neat for that to be my first game here at Clemson.”

It was also neat that his Tigers (1-0) held Auburn to 19 points despite the fact it drove inside the Clemson 20 twice and two other times got inside the 30. After giving up a long touchdown on Auburn’s second possession of the night, the Clemson defense did not yield a play longer than 38 yards the rest of the evening.

“Every week has its own challenges,” Venables said. “Last week, was the unknown. We felt like we would have to go in and make adjustments during the game. We felt like we constantly had to make adjustments because a lot of things we worked on, we really did not see.”

The Clemson defense did a good job making those adjustments, especially in the fourth quarter when it held Auburn to 50 yards of total offense and got a big sack during Auburn’s last drive that pretty much sealed the victory.

“There are things we have to get better at,” Venables said. “That’s usually pretty typical for the first game of the year. I don’t know many years when it has not been the case. You always want more and you expect more.

“I believe we will get that this week.”

But that was last week. Venables’ focus now is turned to a Ball State team that ran 96 plays for 596 yards in a 37-26 win over Eastern Michigan. Running back Jahwan Edwards rushed for a career-high 200 yards and scored three rushing touchdowns.

“This week is another set of new challenges,” Venables said. “Every week is going to be that way. I really believe that. Whether you are fighting the mental aspect or the actual mental aspect or the certain preparation issues that are involved, there is always a storyline behind it to me.”

The storyline this week is how Venables defense will improve against an offense that is known for putting up big numbers and big yards for second-year head coach Pete Lembo. Prior to coming to Ball State, Lembo’s teams at Elon averaged more than 400 yards per game in each of his five seasons there.

“Ball State is really good on offense,” Venables said. “They opened the game at Oklahoma last year with an onside kick and they got it. They are going to have that go for broke, we have nothing to lose attitude. If we don’t match that intensity and that focus we are going to get embarrassed.”