By Will Vandervort.
By Will Vandervort
CLEMSON — After racking up 426 total yards and scoring 37 points against what was the nation’s top-rated defense; Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris is really excited about his offense.
The 17th-ranked Tigers for the most part won the war against the Florida State defense Saturday night. They rushed for 136 yards against a unit that was allowing 33 yards per game coming in. They had 21 first downs. They were three-for-three inside the red zone and converted on seven of 17 third downs, including 2-for-3 on short yardage, with the lone miss coming when Sammy Watkins overthrew a wide open Adam Humphries on a reverse pass, which more than likely would have gone for a touchdown.
“We felt we had to win that down, that specific part of it (to give us a chance), and we did that with Tajh Boyd running the football and our offensive line blocking,” Morris said. “Darrell (Smith) and Sam Cooper I thought did a real good job coming in and Brandon Ford played his best game of the year. He was as physical as anyone we had.
“I was pleased to see that. There are a lot of positives in this game that we can build on.”
But as good as all of that was there were still a few battles Clemson lost, and Morris feels those battles more than likely contributed in the overall team loss to the Seminoles.
After FSU closed what was once a 28-14 lead to 31-28 late in the third quarter, the Tigers began their first of three straight possessions in which they failed to pick up a first down.
When Florida State (4-0, 1-0) got the ball back, it quickly moved down the field to take the lead at first, and then build a comfortable one.
“I go back to those three drives or those three series where we had some dropped balls on third down and we had a (penalty),” Morris said. “That was a prime opportunity that we could have taken the crowd out of the game, and we did not get it done.”
Though it was not a perfect game for the Tigers’ offense, it should have been good enough to leave Tallahassee, Fla., with a victory. But that doesn’t make Morris feel any better.
“You are not going to be perfect,” he said. “We are going to put our guys in situations to be successful. They study film too. They have coaches too. They are going to play hard to and they are going to win a few of those little battles that you have. But, our job as an offensive unit is to score one more point than (the opponent) has, whether that is sixty or whether that is ten.
“That’s what are job is, and I think that it is important that we all understand that. We are put out there to do a job. I’m put out there to do a job and I have to put our players in situations to be successful and put points on the board to win ball games, and we did not get it done. We had opportunities. We had three series to get it done and we didn’t. I’m very proud of our players for how they played and the scrappiness and the battle that they had.”
Morris said he was also pleased with the effort. There were very few instances in which a player was not going full speed, and that is what really encourages him more than anything else.
“There was only one missed assignment, I think,” Morris said. “We were playing at a very high level, but we had three series where we did not get it done. Look, it wasn’t all on them. There was a bad play call in there. I called a couple of bad plays. But, you can’t go into a ball game and think you are going to be perfect because you are not.
“But I do know this, we are going to go into every ball game with intent to have a great plan and we are going to put points on the board.”