By Ed McGranahan.
By Ed McGranahan
Most of the nation probably switched to some other reality show at 9 p.m. because Clemson ended the suspense by halftime.
Sammy Watkins, better late than ever, set a school record for receiving yardage set three weeks ago by teammate Nuk Hopkins.
In his 22nd start, Tajh Boyd bettered the school record for passing yardage that Charlie Whitehurst set 10 years ago in his first.
A defense taxed to get off the field the first month forced 10 punts.
And nationally ranked Clemson covered the line again to win its seventh game.
It’s hard to be critical.
“Busted that myth,” said center Dalton Freeman of Clemson’s sorry track record on Thursday night ESPN games. “If we go out and play our style of football it shouldn’t matter.”
Clemson’s style wasn’t subtle. For a half, at least, Boyd was able to fling the ball like a hunter with a good scope. Were those five touchdown passes to five different receivers a message to the conspiracy theorists among us?
“I thought in the third quarter we lost a little of our edge, lost our focus and kind of made some inappropriate throws and couldn’t create a first down here and there,” Morris said coming off its worst performance of the season against Virginia Tech, it was refreshing if not perfect.
“Good to get something going with the way we played last week offensively.”
If Boyd’s shoulder was sore Sunday after 21 passes in the Virginia Tech game, he might need an ibuprofen or two after throwing nearly twice as many at Wake Forest’s challenged secondary. In fact, they ran him back onto the field in the fourth quarter when he was near 400 yards, and on the third try he hit Martavis Bryant for 37 yards to break Whitehurst’s record
“I feel like we did a pretty good job, especially in the first half,” Boyd said. “I think we got to the point to where we were trying to do too much, but we settled down and finished the game strong.”
Punished for being three minutes late to a meeting, Watkins responded with eight receptions for 202 yards. Ironically, Watkins was so open he had to wait on a couple of Boyd’s throws. Morris said he called an aggressive game because Wake chose to play man coverage on his wide receivers.
“If people are going to try to play us man coverage, we’re going to be aggressive with that,” he said. “It’s good to be able to get Sammy going and to back them off.”
Morris said there’s plenty to practice before the trip to Duke next week. Boyd was sacked three times and Clemson had a net 101 rushing yards, though it wasn’t all the fault of the offensive line.
“They knew they had to heat us up early, and they were bringing more than we could block,” Freeman said. “At times we did good with it, but at times we’ve got to throw hot or get rid of the ball.”
Brent Venables continue to find clarity with an even better defensive performance than that of a week ago. The 290 yards was the lowest total by a Clemson opponent since the Boston College game last year.
With nine sacks coming into the game, Clemson added five more with a representative rush. Linebacker Tig Willard played perhaps his best overall game, singlehandedly blowing up one Wake possession with tackles on successive plays.
“Better, cleaner, more consistent,” Venables said, “yet far from a finished product. Doing it on the road is a positive. You’ve got to keep things in perspective, but we did it better, longer for the first time this year.”
It’s hard to be critical.