Georgia Tech ranks 75th nationally and 12th in the ACC against the run, allowing 169.6 yards per game. That’s not exactly what head coach Paul Johnson wants to hear heading into Saturday’s showdown with No. 6 Clemson in Death Valley.
Why? The Tigers now have a running game.
Thanks to sophomore running back Wayne Gallman, and an offensive line that has shown significant improvement from last year, Clemson has rushed for more than 200 yards in each of its victories over Louisville and Notre Dame.
In fact, the Tigers have rushed for more the 200 yards in three of their four games, and are averaging 194.0 yards per game overall, which ranks fifth in the conference.
“I have been impressed with their offensive line because they are all new and they have been able to run the ball,” Johnson said during the ACC Coaches Teleconference on Wednesday.
Clemson’s new starters on the offensive line include Jay Guillermo at center—who will start his third straight game with center Ryan Norton still nursing a knee sprain—Tyrone Crowder at right guard, Eric Mac Lain at left guard, Joe Gore at right tackle and freshman Mitch Hyatt at left tackle.
“The biggest question mark coming into the season was our offensive line,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “Our ability to run the football through these first four games has been impressive. That was the one question mark in the beginning of the season.
“Wayne Gallman has gone back-to-back 100-yard games. None of the five linemen last Saturday night were returning starters from 2014 and we have a true freshman at left tackle. What we did against Notre Dame in the trenches was excellent.”
The Tigers did not run the ball well at all at Georgia Tech last year. They finished with 131 rushing yards, but had just 68 yards the last three quarters.
“They kicked our butt last year; it’s just that simple,” Swinney said. “We were pathetic offensively against this group last year. We really put our defense in a bad situation in this game last year.”
Clemson was running the ball in the first quarter, primarily thanks to quarterback Deshaun Watson, who had 40 yards on seven carries. He used his legs on the Tigers’ opening possession to set up a 27-yard Ammon Lakip field goal.
On the next possession, he again had Clemson on the move before going down at the Georgia Tech 14 with what turned out to be a torn ACL in his left knee. No one touched him on that play as broke into the open field before falling down.
At that time, with just under two minutes to play in the first quarter, the Tigers had 90 total yards. They had just 100 the rest of the afternoon.
“They could not run the ball. He was pretty much their running game early on, and when he went out they did not have the success running the ball,” Johnson said. “It was a game where there were not a lot of possessions and they turned it over a couple of times. We just kind of chipped away at them because they were as good defensively as anybody we played. That was just kind of the way the game went, but the key to it was they just were not able to run the ball.”
Watson is back, however, and he is again running and throwing the ball as well as anybody in the country. In last week’s win over Notre Dame, he rushed for a career-high 93 yards, including a 21-yard touchdown in the third quarter. He also threw two touchdown pass in the first quarter before the heavy rains came and changed the Tigers plan of attack.
He also rushed for 54 yards against Louisville and threw for 199 more, including two touchdown passes.
“I think they have great athletes. It starts with the quarterback. He is a tremendous player,” Johnson said. “The running back, the Gallman kid, has really run hard.”
Johnson admits Clemson is a much more difficult team to prepare for when they are able to run the ball, and that includes Watson’s ability to be a part of the running game.
“He is a big part of that. He is a huge part of their running game,” the Yellow Jackets’ head coach said. “He is a very dangerous runner and the Gallman kid is a hard runner. In our game last year, when he went out, the other guy (Cole Stoudt) was not quite the runner he was and that enabled us to do some things coverage wise that made it tougher for them to throw.”