By Will Vandervort.
Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson is only going to play against Wake Forest on Thursday night if the 19th-ranked Tigers need the freshman to come in and win the game for them.
Dabo Swinney said during the ACC’s Coaches Call on Wednesday the Tigers’ goal heading to Winston-Salem is to score one more point than Wake Forest no matter if it is Cole Stoudt who gets it done or if Watson comes off the bench and achieve its.
“We only needed seven (points) and we scored 16 against Syracuse,” Swinney said. “We were points to the good. We just need one more point than the opponent.”
Over the last three games, mostly with Stoudt at quarterback, Clemson has averaged just 18.6 points and 334 yards a game. They haven’t exactly been the offensive power they had been when Watson led them to 50 and 41 points against North Carolina and NC State earlier this year.
Though the Tigers (6-2, 5-1) have won five straight games, they have stayed at No. 21 in the first two College Football Playoff Rankings primarily due to the fact they struggled to beat Louisville, 23-17, Boston College, 17-13, and Syracuse, 16-6.
“We are not trying to win a popularity contest or anything like that,” Swinney said. “We are just trying to win the game.”
To do that Clemson will need to take care of the football better than it did against Syracuse on Oct. 25. The Tigers turned the football over four times and all six of the Orange’s points came off two of those turnovers.
“We have to take care of the ball. Let’s not turn it over four times,” Swinney said. “That is not a good recipe. We also have to finish drives. We have put some really good drives together. I mean some really good drives, where we have come away with no points, especially in the red zone.”
Clemson ranks 113th in red zone offense after being ranked among the nation’s best the previous two years. The Tigers have scored just 72 percent of the time when they enter the opponent’s 20-yard line.
“That has been the most disappointing thing for us this year,” Swinney said. “When we have been in position to score, we have not finished. It has been a lot of different things from turnovers to missed kicks to poor execution to bad calls.
“It has been a combination of all those things – bad snaps, whatever. It has really hurt us when we have had scoring opportunities. So we just have to capitalize and be very consistent in finishing our drives.”
And of course, score one more point than Wake Forest.