The TCI staff of Hale McGranahan, Will Vandervort, William Qualkinbush and Robert MacRae go Around the Horn to answer some of the questions surrounding Clemson athletics and college football.
What will we see Thursday night that we haven’t seen the first two games?
Robert MacRae – We will see coach Elliott open up the playbook for the offense. I expect to see more use of the tight end and some jet sweeps and other plays we didn’t see in the two “preseason” games.
On defense I expect to see Kearse all over the field. Venables will blitz him at times and have him playing center field on other plays.
I also expect to see Clemson go for a fourth down or two if the field goal is more than 43 yards or so.
William Qualkinbush – I think Clemson will put pressure on the edges of the defense with the running game. Over the first two weeks, the Tigers have run the ball primarily between the tackles and primarily with running backs. Outside option pitch plays—whether the more traditional one or the pitch-keep play that was featured early in the Georgia Tech game last season—have been barely utilized so far. Deshaun Watson has had a peripheral role running the football so far, and I would be shocked if he didn’t pull the ball down and create his own opportunities by design at Louisville. The Cardinals have given up a ton of rushing yardage to quarterbacks, and Watson possesses the ability to cause problems for that defense to the point that more opportunities present themselves for other ball-carriers, as well.
Hale McGranahan – I’ve been a big proponent of Shaq Lawson since his junior year at Daniel High School. For whatever, the network affiliated with my previous employer listed Lawson as a three-star prospect. And, for some reason that baffles me to this day, he was ranked as the 116th best defensive end in the country. But I digress.
In their first two games of the season, Louisville’s quarterbacks have been sacked six times. Auburn’s defensive linemen combined for four. Houston, of course, had two last week.
Lawson already has one sack under his belt this season — last week against Appalachian State. I suspect he’ll another two-plus sacks to his total on Thursday nights. Whichever quarterback Bobby Petrino rolls with, they’ll see a
lot of No. 90.
Will Vandervort: I think you will see the offense open up a little, especially in the running game. We saw during the week when we were allowed to watch fall camp that Clemson used Deshaun Watson in the running game. That’s something we have not seen to this point through the first two games. We also have not seen the Tigers’ downfield passing game as much. We got a couple of glimpses in the App. State game with the 59-yard pass to Charone Peake and the 41-yard pass to Artavis Scott, but look for the Tigers to open up the playbook a little more against Louisville. They stayed very vanilla in scoring 86 points in the first two games.