CLEMSON — We head to halftime here at Death Valley, with Clemson trailing SMU 16-7.

The Tigers are looking for their third straight win and their first victory over a Power-4 opponent at home in almost a year.

Clemson has just 147 yards of total offense, with 75 of those coming on the lone scoring drive. The offense only has six first downs. The Tigers had 4 three-and-outs in the opening half, as well as a four-and-out where they turned it over on downs.

Vizzina Mostly Ineffective

With Cade Klubnik injured and watching from the sideline, the Clemson offense was stuck in neutral for a while with Vizzina taking the snaps. In fact, it never got out of park until the second quarter.

Vizzina struggled mightily as the Tigers went three-and-out on three of their five first-quarter possessions. The longest drive in the opening quarter only went 18 yards. Vizzina also fumbled twice, losing one.

However, that changed on the Tigers’ first series of the second quarter, with Vizzina connecting on several big throws, including a 32-yard touchdown strike to T.J. Moore for Clemson’s first score of the game.

Vizzina also made a couple of good throws on the second possession of the second quarter, with one of those being dropped by Tyler Brown on what would have been a first-down catch.

He is 13-of-15 for 112 yards with the one touchdown pass. Outside of the scoring drive, too many of his throws have been underneath.

Get Running Game Going

Seeing as your backup quarterback is playing, why not make it a point to get the ground game going? Adam Randall has just six carries to this point. Gideon Davidson has just one.

Defense a Mixed Bag

Outside of one bust on the backend that led to a 70-yard touchdown pass from Keven Jennings, Tom Allen’s unit had held up pretty well considering the offense took so long to get anything going. Make no mistake, it’s been far from perfect, but three times the Tigers bowed up and held the Mustangs to a field goal.

SMU is only averaging 2.4 yards per carry, and Jennings is only completing 55% of his throws. The Tigers have to be better on 3rd down, though. The Mustangs are converting 40% of those opportunities.

Having said that, at times, Jennings has had too much time to throw. Seeing as he’s dealing with an ankle himself, Clemson has to find a way to create more stress on the Mustangs’ quarterback.

The Tigers do have five tackles for loss and a sack. Maybe if they could get a little help from the offense.

Punt the Ball

Late in the second quarter, with Clemson down 13-6 and facing a 4th and 1 from inside their own territory, Dabo Swinney decided to go for it by handing it to Peter Woods. The play was blown up and Woods was stopped for no gain, resulting in a turnover on downs. SMU took over at the Clemson 36-yard line, pretty much in field goal range already.

Why not just punt the ball there and make the Mustangs drive the entire field? It is only a one-score game at that point.