CLEMSON — Coming into the season, it was widely expected that Clemson would face two big tests on the national stage, and the Tigers have now failed miserably in both.

Miami came into Death Valley and left with a 41-13 victory as the fourth-ranked Hurricanes pulled away over the final quarter and a half, turning what was at least a competitive game into a rout.

Tait Reynolds, despite a handful of mistakes, played admirably and continues to show a lot of promise. However, he didn’t get nearly enough help from his offensive line, which in turn led to the Tigers not making much of an effort to establish the running game.

Gideon Davidson had just five carries in the first half, and without the threat of a running game, the Hurricanes kept the pressure on the freshman quarterback all night long, sacking him six times. From the start, the plan seemed to be to exploit a banged-up Miami secondary, and while Reynolds finished with a career-high 295 passing yards, it wasn’t nearly enough.

OL Issues

One week after turning in its best performance of the season, against what is turning out to be a pretty bad Cal team, Clemson was again exposed up front, particularly on the right side of an offensive line that has struggled mightily in the two high-profile losses to LSU and Miami.

Collin Sadler was overmatched much of the night. At right guard, Grant Wise and Ronan O’Connell just didn’t come close to playing at the level needed.

Turns out, riding with an offensive line littered with youth and even the two older guys playing new positions wasn’t the recipe for success. At this point, it is beating a dead horse, but how much more productive is this offense if Dabo Swinney had elected to get some portal help to bridge the gap to some of the younger players in the room?

Defense Kept Clemson In It

Tom Allen’s unit kept the Tigers in this one for a lot of the night. The offense just didn’t do its part.

This was an 11-point game until very late in the third quarter, and Clemson had ample opportunity to make it more of a game than that. However, critical mistakes would keep that from happening, including two very costly false starts from inside the Miami 5-yard line.

Then there was the decision to go for it on 4th and 2 early in the third quarter. It was a gimmick play, and Reynolds sold it pretty well, but Miami was not fooled, and the direct snap to Gideon Davidson was stuffed on a play where it appeared the right guard had a missed assignment. If you take the points and kick the field goal there, you are only down by one score. After the turnover on downs, Miami went on a 14-play, 83-yard touchdown drive that ate up almost eight minutes of clock, basically putting the game away in the process. That was a huge swing in the game.

At halftime, Clemson had about a five-minute advantage in time of possession. By the end of the game, Miami had more than a seven-minute advantage. There was a huge swing in the second half, as the defense was just left on the field too long.

Not All Bad News

Ashton Hampton continues to show his first-round potential. Hampton held star wideout Malachi Toney to just one catch and eight yards. The other two times Toney was targeted when Hampton was covering, both passes were broken up.

Bryant Wesco had his first big game of the season, hauling in nine catches for 152 yards, with 69 of those coming after the catch.

Tyler Brown kept his bounce-back junior campaign going with 10 catches for 76 yards, with 52 of his coming after the catch. And a lot of those were tough yards. He did have a drop, but otherwise it was a strong performance.

Last, but certainly not least, for most of the night, Clemson did at least look like it belonged on the same field as the No. 4 Hurricanes. That was not the case in the season-opening blowout loss to LSU.

There are some things to build on from this game, but the fact is, right now, this roster just isn’t good enough along the lines of scrimmage to compete at the highest level, especially the offensive line. The Tigers relied on four underclassmen up front on Saturday night to match up against seasoned veterans.