It’s hard to imagine that a team that lost the turnover battle in six games this season went through an entire regular season with an unblemished record, and sits atop the College Football World. Yet, that is exactly what No. 1 ranked Clemson did.
The Tigers, who play No. 8 North Carolina in the ACC Championship Game this Saturday in Charlotte, N.C., have committed 24 turnovers this year, including 10 in the last three games.
“You have to give the other team some credit, but at the end of the day, we still found a way to win the game,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “Even though you lose the turnover margin by two, and that’s hard to do, and I think that speaks to the resolve of this team, the overall talent of our team, the poise of our team, and the mental toughness, because those are things that can really cost you, especially when you’re on the road.”
Clemson (12-0) has turned the football over in all but one of its 12 games this year, including a season-high three against Georgia Tech, Syracuse and South Carolina.
“The turnover margin is a critical piece to winning games,” said co-offensive coordinator Jeff Scott. “We drill it in practice and we will continue to do that. The biggest thing is not to panic. We are not going to panic with our guys and get our guys playing tight and worrying about those types of things. We just kind of go back to the details and the fundamentals and improve on that this week and protect the ball.”
The Tigers can go nowhere but up. Clemson ranks 107th nationally in turnover margin at minus-3 for the season, the defense has forced 21 turnovers.
“We don’t want to turn the ball over. We just have to continue to work at it and really not focus on that,” said quarterback Deshaun Watson, who has thrown 10 interceptions this year. “If we focus on not turning the ball over, then we are going to make mistakes while trying to execute the plays. We are going to go out there and play, and throughout practice we will try to protect the ball.”
Clemson cannot afford to lose the turnover margin this week against the Tar Heels. North Carolina (11-1) has committed just 15 turnovers this season and ranks 16th nationally in turnover margin at plus-9.
“Certainly we want to kind of break that trend,” Swinney said. “When we’ve had our backs against the wall in some of these games, whether it was Florida State or whatever, we’ve been able to either be even or win the margin, and I think that’s going to be a critical factor to this weekend for both teams. They certainly don’t want to give it to us on a short field, and vice versa. So we need to be cleaner, but I think it’s just something you just continue to work fundamentals.”
In their bigger games this year—Louisville, Notre Dame, Miami, NC State and Florida State—the Tigers won or tied in the turnover margin and came out of those five games with a plus-7 margin.
“The worst thing to do is to panic and things like that because then you get guys playing timid and playing scared, afraid to make mistakes. That is not who we are,” Scott said. “We want to be well coached and we want to play fundamentally sound and we want to go out and play with a lot of confidence and put it all out there.
“There will be a fine line this week. We are going to coach it. We are going to learn from it and then we are going to move on and keep doing what we are doing.”
So what is Clemson doing in practice to try and fix the issue?
“We do a lot of things,” Scott said. “It starts at the very beginning in our flex runs. We start that at the beginning of our practice. All of our skill players have a football and all of our coaches are walking around with the boxing clubs trying to knock the ball out. Those guys have to do the flex runs holding the football high and tight and in the proper position.
“Then we chart what we call B.I.Js which means Balls In Jeopardy. So anytime we see a ball that gets outside of the frame work and it is not put in that correct position, then we track those and hold those guys accountable. You coach it when you see it. You talk about it, and these guys will learn from it. It has not been something that has been a major problem all year, but we have been fortunate we have been able to overcome the ones we have had so far.”
Scott believes the trend will eventually turn around and even itself out in the end.
“I believe last year, towards the end of the year, we fell into the same thing. We had some turnovers and then we went into the bowl game and we had zero and I think Oklahoma had five,” he said. “I think that can happen. It is very similar to baseball when a good hitter gets in a slump, a good hitter gets out of it.
“But sometimes they do come in cycles and bunches and hopefully we are on the other end of that so we will keep working on it.”