By Will Vandervort.
By Will Vandervort
CLEMSON — Chad Morris said during his weekly meeting with the media on Monday that he was going to be as nice and as G-rated as he could when describing the performance of his offense in 13th-ranked Clemson’s 38-17 victory over Virginia Tech last Saturday.
Though he stayed G-rated, the Tigers’ offensive coordinator struggled at times to be nice.
“We were lethargic,” he said. “Look at two of the first three plays of the game. We take two sacks to start the game and from the rest of the day forward, we had a hard time getting Tajh (Boyd) to step up in the pocket.
“That was causing balls to sail. He was not on his game. He was definitely off. Again, I will give Virginia Tech credit, but at the same time that is totally unacceptable from our guys.”
Clemson (6-1, 3-1 ACC) finished the day with 295 total yards, the worst yardage output under Morris since he took over as the play caller in 2011. Morris says he could make excuses that the off week caused some rust and their timing was off, but he isn’t going to do that.
“That’s bull corn in my opinion,” he said. “We weren’t on. I know there is going to be days like that, but that isn’t acceptable and we are not going to accept days like that. There are going to be days when maybe the quarterback is not on, but for us not to play at the level we are expected to play at and that we demand them to play at is not acceptable.”
Morris, who has a short week to get things fixed as Clemson travels to Wake Forest for a rare Thursday night encounter, says a lot of the issues that occurred started up front where the offensive line issued five sacks and was called for a holding penalty.
Saturday’s lackluster outing seemed as if the offense was reading all of its press clippings from the last several weeks. Besides allowing the most sacks on the year and being held under 300 total yards, the Tigers had a season-low 15 first downs, averaged just 3.0 yards per carry and ran a season-low 66 plays.
“I think some of our guys might have been walking around and signing too many autographs and were too excited about themselves,” Morris said. “It kind of refocused those guys. We had to put the sharpies up this week.”
Morris wasn’t all hard on his offense. He was still glad to see his unit score 31 points despite playing their worst game of the season, while giving credit to Brent Venables defense for giving them multiple opportunities with the four forced turnovers and several three-and-outs.
The Hokies had just 60 total yards in the third quarter.
“Our defense really stepped up and made some stops for us,” he said. “That was huge for us. That was a team win. That was much needed.”
The good news for Clemson was that it was still able to win a game when the offense wasn’t playing good, while sending a message to the offense that they are nowhere near where they need to me and that they still have a lot of room for improvement.
“We are excited about the win so let’s don’t lose focus on that,” Morris said. “But for us to achieve the goals that we have set for ourselves here, we have to play better than that.”