CHARLOTTE — The Clemson Tigers defense applied a valuable lesson from the South Carolina loss to their 34-31 ACC Championship Game win. 

One week prior to No. 17 Clemson’s win over No. 8 SMU, the Tigers (10-3, 8-1) found themselves unable to bring down South Carolina quarterback LaNorris Sellers. 

Sellers, a redshirt freshman, rushed for 166 yards at Memorial Stadium. While he burned the Tigers with his legs throughout the game, his most important run came with 1:08 left to play.

Sellers scrambled 20 yards out of a 3rd-and-15 situation to the end zone to put the Gamecocks up 17-14 over the Tigers.

Clemson failed to regain a lead over Sellers and South Carolina.

One week later, the Tigers’ defense made sure that the Sellers situation was rectified by stopping the quarterback run against SMU.

Like Sellers, SMU quarterback Kevin Jennings is known as a constant threat to punish a defense with his legs. In nine starts this season, the junior has four touchdowns on the ground.

Additionally, he has multiple games with 50+ rushing yards. In SMU’s 34-27 win over Louisville (Clemson’s only ACC loss), Jennings rushed for 113 yards and a touchdown.

But this week, the Tigers knew that stopping the quarterback run might be the difference between a loss and a win.

To contrast Sellers’ production last week, Clemson held Jennings to only 35 rushing yards and no rushing touchdowns. Jennings was sacked twice by T.J. Parker and Cade Denhoff.

Additionally, Parker’s was a strip sack on the first possession of the game that led to Clemson’s first touchdown. A quarter later, safety Khalil Barnes handed the Texas native his eighth interception of the season.  

Despite this defensive success, Jennings still finished with 310 passing yards and three passing touchdowns against the Tigers.

However, the defense made sure this week that no one play from Jennings could jeopardize Clemson’s lead.

While the win over SMU was decided by the same point differential as the South Carolina game, the Tigers had a new will to not go down to the Mustangs after last week.

Though the South Carolina game was full of “hurt” according to head coach Dabo Swinney, the lessons learned helped the Tigers claim victory against SMU.

In two weeks, these lessons can contribute to Clemson’s gameplan in the first round of the College Football Playoff.

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