TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Brandon Streeter had two thoughts when he dialed it up.
“The first thing I yelled is, ‘I’m so glad we don’t have to practice it anymore,’” Clemson’s offensive coordinator said.
That’s because Streeter said the Tigers had been practicing a reverse flea-flicker for “five or six weeks at least.” And with Clemson having all the momentum coming out of the locker room for the second half against Florida State, Streeter finally called for it to be run in a game.
That’s the other thing Streeter had in mind when it came to the timing of reaching into his bag of tricks.
“We just wanted to keep the pedal to the metal and do a great job of continuing to attack like we did in the first half,” Streeter said.
Clemson did it on the first play of the second half, and it helped the Tigers pull out a 34-28 victory Saturday at Doak Campbell Stadium. Before the call came in, Clemson had scored the final 17 points of the first half to take a 24-14 lead into the break.
Not wanting to let up, Streeter sent in the call the first chance he got after Will Shipley returned the opening kickoff of the third quarter 69 yards into FSU territory. With Clemson at the Seminoles’ 31-yard line, quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei handed off to running back Phil Mafah, who gave it to freshman receiver Antonio Williams running in the opposite direction.
Williams then pitched the ball back to Uiagalelei, who waited for fellow receiver Joseph Ngata to clear out on the left side, leaving Davis Allen to operate alone down the sideline. Allen eventually slipped out and raced past linebacker Tatum Bethune.
Uiagalelei hit Allen in stride, and Clemson’s senior tight end took care of the rest, holding off Bethune on his way to the end zone. That extended Clemson’s lead to 31-14. The Tigers tacked on a field goal on their next possession to make it 27 unanswered points.
“I don’t know how many weeks we’ve been working that, but we’ve been working that,” Uiagalelei said. “Davis slipped out right there and did a really good job. The running back set it up, Antonio flipped me the ball, and I think (receiver) Joe (Ngata) won in the middle. I heard Beaux won on the outside. But right there, I was just looking for Davis, and he came wide open. He did a really good job of staying up and scoring a touchdown.”
Clemson bogged down for the majority of the second half offensively, totaling just 40 yards on its last three drives before running out the clock with a few kneel-downs on its final possession. But Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said the coaching staff talked at halftime about wanting to pull the trick play out early in the half if things aligned.
They did, and the Tigers capitalized for what proved to be an important sequence in their latest victory.
“Everybody has specials in their inventory, and we’ve had that,” Swinney said. “It’s got to be the right situation, right hash, right timing. All those type of things. And we were ready for it. It was perfect.”