CLEMSON – Just 30 seconds after Clemson kicked off against No. 8 LSU this past Saturday, running back Gideon Davidson found the ball in his hands after an interception gave the Tigers an early extra possession.

As Davidson received the handoff from quarterback Christopher Vizzina on the Tigers’ first offensive play of the game, more than 102,000 LSU supporters in Tiger Stadium hurled cheers, determined to distract Clemson’s offense.

Though Davidson picked up a gain of four yards, setting up a manageable second down for the Tigers, the persistent cheers, as well as first game jitters, may have eventually created “mental mistakes” for Clemson’s offense, especially for the running backs.

“It was a big environment, obviously 103,000 people can definitely get in somebody’s head,” Davidson said. “But I’d really just say it was kind of a mix of a new offense, a massive environment, just a lot of pressure from myself to be great. I would just say those mental mistakes were kind of just a lot of different factors put together.”

Whatever the reason, Clemson’s rushing attack fell far short of success on Saturday. At one point, the Tigers had zero total rushing yards while LSU already had well over 200, and while they eventually found some momentum in the fourth quarter, the game was already out of hand. 

Davidson, the starter, finished with 20 yards on seven carries, averaging just shy of three yards per attempt.

Jarvis Green, freshly recovered from a serious injury, led all Clemson running backs with 21 yards on four attempts, while David Eziomume had the longest run of the night (11 yards) for the Tigers’ lone touchdown. All in all, Clemson finished with just 40 total rushing yards, marking the fourth time in the last two seasons that the Tigers have rushed for fewer than 50 yards in a game.

All four of these games–twice against LSU, and versus SMU and Penn State–resulted in losses. In the four prior seasons, Clemson averaged at least 168 rush yards per season. In 2025, however, the Tigers dropped down to an average of just 124 rushing yards per game.

Head coach Dabo Swinney believes that the failures in the ground game Saturday night can be credited to the mental mistakes Davidson referenced, or what he calls “miscues.”

“Well, we had some miscues from a track standpoint and an alignment standpoint,” Swinney said. “Had a couple miscues there.We did not execute a couple things where we should have pitched the ball, didn’t pitch the ball. We had two good plays where  our running back stopped. He really had the edge if he just takes it and he kind of stopped his feet and that’s really what they want you to do, that’s what the pursuit wants you to do. So just some things that you know again now that you’ve played they can grow from.”

Now, Davidson and the Tigers are looking to move forward from the poor ground game performance this Saturday, when Georgia Southern travels to Clemson for the Tigers’ home opener. As Clemson looks to improve and grab its first win since last November, the running backs’ priority is to hone in on those mental errors.

“Just fixing everything mentally,” Davidson said, speaking on the advice he gave the running backs. “I mean, we have the ability to run the ball really well. It’s nothing depth wise or talent-wise. It’s really just kind of focusing on the mistakes that we got to improve on. I really think that’s really it.”

While Clemson will deal with cheers and pageantry again this weekend, this time it will be favorable, as orange-and-purple clad fans will head to Memorial Stadium to catch Clemson’s season-opener.

Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m.