While the setback to Notre Dame may have been ugly, Clemson still just has one loss on the season. Given the issues the Tigers have had keeping the ball way from the opposition recently, Dabo Swinney considers his team fortunate that it’s not yet dealing with a losing streak.
“You’re lucky to be 1-1 in those two games,” Swinney said.
The Tigers have strayed from the norm its last couple of times out in the turnover department. Clemson turned it over twice against the Fighting Irish, which came on the heels of that four-turnover fiasco against Syracuse two weeks earlier.
After committing just five turnovers in its first seven games, Clemson is a combined minus-5 the last two in the turnover margin. If the Tigers don’t clean up their act Saturday against Louisville, that losing skid feels inevitable, particularly considering the type of defense Clemson will see inside Memorial Stadium.
“We’ll get beat again because this bunch is very opportunistic,” Swinney said.
In fact, there hasn’t been a defense in college football more opportunistic than Louisville’s. The Cardinals are tied for the FBS lead with 24 forced turnovers. Eight of those came in one game – Louisville’s 48-21 upset of then-No. 10 Wake Forest just two weeks ago.
Louisville likes to force the issue with a pressurized approach under coordinator Bryan Brown. The Cardinals also have as many sacks on a per-game basis as any team in America and rank 11th in tackles for loss.
Swinney said Louisville has blitzed on nearly of its defensive plays this season. He compared the Cardinals’ approach to that of Syracuse’s defense, but the Cardinals are “bigger, stronger, faster and longer” than the Orange, particularly along the defensive front, Swinney said.
Fourteen players have at least one sack for Louisville with an interior lineman, YaYa Diaby, leading the way in that department (6.5).
It’s a high-risk, high-reward degree of aggressiveness that’s conducive to forcing teams into mistakes, something Clemson’s offensive line as well as D.J. Uiagalelei and Cade Klunbik will have to try to avoid. The quarterbacks have accounted for all but one of Clemson’s turnovers the last two games, two of those leading directly to points for the opposition.
Swinney noted it would help if Clemson’s defense could create some more turnovers of its own – the Tigers have just three takeaways in the last four games – but protecting the ball against a defense that’s made it hard for other teams to do so is the top priority for Clemson this weekend.
“That makes a huge difference in winning and losing,” Swinney said. “That’s one of those things you have to do to win. You don’t have to be perfect, but you need to win the margin. We’ve done a pretty good job of that, but these last two games, it’s not been good. W’eve been really sloppy with the ball.”
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