By William Qualkinbush.
No. 19 Clemson travels to Wake Forest for an Atlantic Division showdown Thursday night. TCI take a look at the game By the Numbers.
3: Consecutive wins for Clemson on Thursday night. It has been an unprecedented run of success for the Tigers on a stage that, historically speaking, has proven treacherous. From 1998 until 2009, Clemson was 1-9 in Thursday night games featured on ESPN. The lone win during that stretch came in 2005, a 31-10 victory at N.C. State. But something changed in Clemson’s most recent trip to Winston-Salem in 2012. The Tigers beat Wake Forest 42-13—the largest margin of victory for the Tigers on Thursday night since 1998—to jumpstart the current winning streak. Coincidentally, Clemson’s only other Thursday night trip to Winston-Salem was a 12-7 loss in 2006 in what eventually became the final game of the Tommy Bowden era.
10: Minimum ranking in the major defensive statistical categories for Clemson’s defense. The Tigers rank among the nation’s top ten in total (2nd), pass (5th), rush (10th), and scoring (10th) defense. No other team in the country boasts all four distinctions, putting the Clemson defense in rarified air. In addition, only five teams were listed in three of those lists, while an additional three squads find their names on two lists.
23.0: Percentage of opponent third-down conversions allowed by Clemson this season. That ranks as the best in the nation by 3.6 percentage points, ahead of Michigan State and Nebraska. To put that gap into perspective, there are five teams ranked below the Spartans and Cornhuskers whose percentages fall within 3.6 points of each other. Clemson’s impressive showing includes a four-game stretch where the Tigers have allowed only nine third-down conversions in 61 attempts—a miniscule 14.8 percent success rate for the opposition. Wake Forest comes into Thursday’s game ranked 123rd out of 125 qualifying teams in third-down offense, converting just 28.2 percent of the time this season.
43: Number of offensive plays that have gone for 20 or more yards this season. Of those 43 plays, only five have been runs. Perhaps even more astounding than that imbalance is this: No Clemson running back has accounted for more than one of those runs. Five backs—Adam Choice (34), C.J. Davidson (32), Kurt Fleming (30), Wayne Gallman (21), and D.J. Howard (20)—have broken a long run exactly once apiece this year. Choice is out for the season with an injury, while Fleming is no longer with the team. This means that, through the season’s first eight games, only three 20-plus-yard runs have come from active running backs. Last season, the Tigers had 74 plays that gained 20 yards or more, and 14 of them were runs.
56: Number of Clemson players who have missed games this season due to injury. That’s an average of seven players per game thus far—a staggering number for a team that entered the 2014 season with high expectations. The injuries have come primarily on offense, as ten players on that side of the ball have missed a combined 42 games. Two of those players—quarterback Deshaun Watson and running back Tyshon Dye—may see action against the Demon Deacons. If Dye sees the field, it will be the redshirt freshman’s first collegiate action, while Watson is working his way back from a hand injury suffered a month ago against Louisville.