For the first time in almost a month, Clemson will be back at Memorial Stadium this weekend. The Tigers will renew their rivalry with Florida State on Saturday after the teams hit the pause button on their series amid the coronavirus pandemic last year.
Clemson (4-3, 3-2 ACC) will be trying to stay above .500 on the season against the Seminoles (3-4, 2-2), who will bring a three-game winning streak into Death Valley. What will the Tigers have to do to get the win? Here are three keys:
Run the ball
As much as Clemson has tried this season, the passing game just isn’t working consistently. Whether it be D.J. Uiagalelei’s continued struggles in the accuracy department, drops when his passes are on target or blocking on the perimeter in the screen game (or a combination of all of it), the Tigers have yet to get the passing game out of neutral. Perhaps getting leading receiver Joseph Ngata (COVID-19 protocols) and/or E.J. Williams (knee) back this week would help, but the Tigers rank 111th nationally in passing yards (176.1 per game) and 117th in completion percentage (54.7).
Meanwhile, Clemson has finally found some consistency in the running game. The Tigers ran for 164 yards last week against Pitt and are averaging 170.3 yards on the ground over their last three games. Clemson averaged nearly 6 yards a pop in the first half against the Panthers and finished at 5.5 per carry, the most it’s averaged against an ACC opponent all season.
Clemson will be without running back Kobe Pace, the latest Tiger to go into COVID-19 protocols. That leaves true freshmen Will Shipley and Phil Mafah as the primary backs Saturday, but that’s where D.J. Uiagalelei or Taisun Phommachanh could help. The quarterback competition seems to be open ahead of this game, but Uiagalelei (236 rushing yards) has been a significant part of the running game at times this season while Phommachanh is the better pure runner of the two. He netted 15 yards on his only two carries during his two series against Pitt.
Regardless of who’s carrying the ball, Clemson needs the production to continue from the part of its offense that’s easily been the most consistent of late. Ideally, the Tigers would like to reach 200 yards on the ground. They’re 70-1 during Swinney’s tenure when doing so.
Corral Jordan Travis
Speaking of running games, FSU has one that’s been better than anybody in college football this month. The Seminoles have averaged a whopping 6.91 yards per carry during its three-game winning streak, most in the FBS during that span. Running backs Jashuan Corbin (7.9 yards per carry) and Treshaun Ward (7.4) are certainly part of that equation, but Clemson can’t forget about quarterback Jordan Travis either.
Now healthy, Travis grabbed hold of the starting job at the beginning of the Seminoles’ winning streak and has been a true dual threat at the position. He’s completing nearly 63% of his passes, but he’s also been FSU’s second-most utilized runner with 66 carries. Whether it’s a designed run or making something happen outside of the pocket, the speedy Travis has often burned defenses with his legs (5.2 yards per carry). His four rushing touchdowns are second on the team.
Clemson already faced one mobile quarterback in Syracuse’s Garrett Shrader — the ACC’s leading rusher among quarterbacks — and shut him down to the tune of 6 net yards on seven carries, using a variety of looks and packages to take his legs out of the equation. Swinney said Travis presents a different kind of challenge than Shrader.
“He’s just way more shifty and elusive than the quarterback from Syracuse,” Swinney said. “(Shrader) was a lot bigger. You could kind of get on him a little bit better, but he was strong enough to break tackles, and he ran away from you. This kid, he’s just hard to get your hands on. He’s a magician. And they do a great job because they don’t leave him in the pocket.”
Clemson might have to drop an extra defender into the box to account for Travis’ legs. That would put more pressure on the back end to hold up in what would likely be mostly man coverage in that scenario, but the priority for Brent Venables’ group has to be minimizing Travis’ impact on the ground.
Win the turnover margin
It sounds like a broken record at this point, but it doesn’t make this any less true for Clemson, particularly given how things are going offensively.
The Tigers aren’t scoring many points — 15.1 against FBS opponents on average, to be exact — so increasing the opponents’ chances of doing so by coughing up the ball isn’t good. And turnovers that lead directly to points like Pitt’s pick-six last week are going to be almost impossible for Clemson to overcome.
Conversely, because the offense is struggling so mightily to muster points, it could use all the extra possessions it can get. Clemson has won the turnover battle three times this season and only lost one of those games (10-3 to Georgia). The Tigers are 80-6 under Swinney when finishing in the green when it comes to the turnover margin.
Do that against FSU, a team that’s turned it over 13 times already, and that record has a good chance of improving.