By Will Vandervort.
So what went wrong for Clemson in last year’s 51-14 loss to Florida State in Death Valley? It’s simple – everything. But turnovers were the biggest culprit of all.
The Tigers turned the ball over four times in the game, including a 37-yard scoop-and-score by defensive end Mario Edwards in the first quarter that put the top-ranked Seminoles up 17-0 at the time.
“Those are the things that you just don’t have that type of room for error when you are playing a great, great football team like Florida State,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said earlier this week.
So far 23rd-ranked Clemson has done well at taking care of the football through two games. The Tigers have only two turnovers, but one of those was a fumble that was returned for a score in their win over S.C. State last Saturday.
A turnover like that against Florida State can be costly.
“We have to play a clean game,” Swinney said. “We have to take care of the football to give ourselves a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter.”
In its two losses last season, Clemson turned the football over a combined 10 times. In its 11 victories, it had just 14 turnovers.
From the outset in last year’s loss to FSU, the Tigers were making mistakes. Tight Stanton Seckinger took a pass from Tajh Boyd on the first play of the game and turned it up field for a 10-yard gain, but he was stripped of the football and the Seminoles recovered it at the Clemson 34.
It took only three plays for Jameis Winston and the offense to cash in as the Heisman Trophy quarterback found wide receiver Kelvin Benjamin for a 27-yard touchdown three plays later.
On the third series, former cornerback Lamarcus Joyner had a sack-strip on Boyd and Edwards picked up the loose football and rumbled the remaining 37 yards for an easy touchdown and the rout was on.
“We’re going to have to play very well, but the biggest thing is we have to take care of the ball,” Swinney said. “It doesn’t take a lot to figure that out. We turned it over four times last year, and just put the ball on the ground, one of them was for a score, just a scoop-and-score for them defensively.”
There were a lot of things the Tigers did not do well after that. They ran the ball for just 123 yards and totaled only 326 overall. Defensively, Florida State had its way with them as Winston threw for 444 yards and had big passes plays to Rashad Greene, tight end Nick O’Leary and Benjamin.
Benjamin has since moved on to the NFL, but Winston, Greene and O’Leary will be playing in next Saturday’s primetime matchup on ABC.
“We have to be able to run the ball. We have got to pass the ball effectively, and defensively, we have to minimize the big play,” Swinney said. “We can’t have missed assignments. We’ve got to tackle well, and we’ve got to play a very clean football game.”