CLEMSON — Perhaps one of the worst performance by a Clemson defense took place in the Tigers’ double overtime win at Wake Forest last season.

“Gosh, we were so bad,” Dabo Swinney recalled on Tuesday.

Clemson, who will host the Demon Deacons on Homecoming this Saturday, was worse than bad on defense. It was downright awful, especially the secondary.

Not only did former Wake quarterback Sam Hartman, who now plays at Notre Dame, throw for 337 yards and six touchdowns, but his wide receivers drew five pass interference penalties and one personal foul penalty on the Clemson secondary.

“They were really good, too. You have to give them a lot of credit,” Swinney said. “Those receivers were outstanding. Scary Terry was there. He is probably somewhere in the NFL now. I don’t know where he is at, but he is probably somewhere… He was a great one.”

Scary Terry is, of course, A.T. Perry, who now plays for the New Orleans Saints in the NFL. But Perry was not the one the Tigers had the most trouble with, though he did draw a couple of pass interference penalties.

The guy who hurt Clemson the most was Jahmal Banks. He caught six passes for 141 yards and two touchdowns. One touchdown went for 36 yards, while he also caught a 46-yard pass to set up another score.

By the way, Banks is still with the Demon Deacons and leads Wake with 24 catches for 276 yards and three touchdowns this season.

“They had a really veteran group across the board on both sides of the ball, and just a really good football team,” Swinney said.

But as Swinney also said, the Tigers (3-2, 1-2 ACC) did not play well on the backend of their defense. Besides giving up the six penalties for 90 yards, they also gave up long pass plays of 46, 36, 28, 25, 23, 22 and 19 yards.

“We did not play the double moves well. We did not play the deep balls well. We didn’t disguise well. We did not tackle well. Our technique was poor and we got exposed,” Swinney said.

Cornerback Nate Wiggins, who is questionable to play Saturday due to a bruised knee, had the roughest day of all. He was called for pass interference three times, while also giving up a couple of big plays.

“Nate kind of grew up. That was the kind of night where I think he, in particular, realized he needed to get better from attention to detail and things like that,” Swinney said.

To Wiggins credit, however, he did break up a potential game-tying touchdown on the last play of the second overtime to secure Clemson’s win.

But Wiggins was not the only Tiger that had a bad day in Winston-Salem, N.C., that afternoon. Toriano Pride and Jeadyn Lukus also had bad games. Pride was charged with a pass interference and a personal foul penalty.

However, Clemson’s pass defense has been much better so far this season.

The Tigers rank fourth in the ACC in yards allowed per game through the air (184.2), but they lead the conference in completion percentage defense (53.0), second in yards per attempt (5.6), fourth in interceptions (5) and No. 2 in rating (104.2).

They held three of the league’s best quarterbacks–Duke’s Riley Leonard, Florida State’s Jordan Travis and Syracuse’s Garrett Riley–to 53-of-99 passing (53.5 percent) for 645 yards, four touchdowns and one interception.

“The two areas, as you know, that we said coming in we had to be better was with our pass offense and our pass defense and we have greatly improved in both of those areas,” Swinney said. “That is a real positive and, hopefully, that will hold up on Saturday.”

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