By Will Vandervort.

Robert Smith cannot put a finger on why the Clemson defense dominates its opponents in the first 30 minutes of the game, but struggles in the second half.

Three times this year the Tigers have gone into the locker room holding their opponent under 140 yards of offense. They held No. 12 Georgia to 113 yards and top-ranked Florida State to 84. Against North Carolina last week, the Tar Heels had just 136 total yards.

But in the second half of all three games, Clemson allowed each team a great deal of success moving the ball. In fact, all three drove the ball and scored on their opening drives of the third quarter – Georgia kicked a field goal and both Florida State and UNC scored touchdowns.

“I think we came out flat in the second half,” Smith said Tuesday. “We had a real good first half and we came out flat. We gave up a good amount of points and that is something we have to push on each other coming out of the locker room and treat the second half just like the first half.”

Clemson, who will host NC State at 3:30 p.m. this Saturday in Death Valley, gave up 342 yards and four touchdowns to North Carolina in the final half and 346 yards and 24 points to the Bulldogs. The Seminoles, counting overtime as well, scored 20 points and racked up 234 yards in the final 30 minutes of that game.

“It’s what we have been talking about all year – it is about finishing and playing a full game and not let our performance waiver throughout the game,” defensive tackle Grady Jarrett said. “That’s going to be a focus that we have this week as a defensive unit. We are going to play a full game and improve off of last week’s performance.”

The Tigers (2-2, 1-1 ACC) will have to do it against an NC State offense that is playing as well as anyone in the conference. The Wolfpack currently lead the ACC in total offense (505.6) and rank second in the conference in scoring (40.4).

Last week, NC State had 520 total yards and scored 41 points on the Seminoles. Quarterback Jacoby Brissett had 359 yards and threw three touchdowns. He has thrown 156 passes without an interception this season.

“The biggest difference in their whole program is their quarterback,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “This guy is a really, really good football player. I’m very impressed with what I have seen out of their quarterback.”

That doesn’t make it easy for a defense that is trying to figure out what has exactly gone wrong in the second half of games this season.

“The frustrating thing the other night was that we had some guys have some mental errors and that should not have happened,” Swinney said. “I think it goes back to preparation. We are going to challenge those guys.”

Those mental errors were busted coverages on a goal line play and on two screens to the wide receivers.

“We are better than that and we know that we are,” defensive coordinator Brent Venables said. “They scored 28 points on seven or eight completions for over 300 yards. It was all bad.

“To fix and rectify issues and problems your guys have to own it and then the coaches have to correct it and teach it and put it back in front of them and hopefully they will execute better.”