During ABC’s broadcast of the Clemson-Florida State game on Saturday night at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, Kirk Herbstreit gave his takeaways from the Tigers’ 34-28 win, as well as some big-picture thoughts on Dabo Swinney’s team going forward this season.
Clemson (7-0, 5-0 ACC) scored 27 unanswered points after trailing 14-7 to take command of the game with a 34-14 lead, though FSU (4-3, 2-3) rallied late with two fourth-quarter touchdowns to get within six points before falling short when the Tigers recovered an onside kick and ran out the clock.
Herbstreit sees the game as a “win-win” for Swinney’s Tigers, who came away with a big road victory and still have plenty of tape to learn from and use as motivation heading into Saturday’s game against Syracuse.
“I think he (Swinney) saw what you and I saw – he saw a Florida State team that didn’t give up when they were down 20,” Herbstreit, ESPN’s lead college football analyst, said to play-by-play man Chris Fowler. “He said my defense was playing to the scoreboard. I think he was right a little bit there. So you get a win, 34 to 28, and yet you can still walk away and go to the film room and say guys, second half, what’s going on here? So, you can keep your team hungry, you can keep your team motivated to get ready for that next game against Syracuse.
“So, it’s a win-win for Clemson to get on the road against a good Florida State team and win it. It wasn’t pretty in the second half, but they still win, and just keep building for the rest of the year.”
The good news for Clemson fans, Herbstreit pointed out, is the Tigers are an inspired group that takes the season one game at a time with an eye toward ultimately reclaiming the conference crown and getting back to the College Football Playoff.
“The greatest thing, if you’re a Clemson fan – forget all the looking down the road at a potential ACC Championship and all that – you have a motivated football team,” Herbstreit said. “So, I don’t think they’re going to get ahead of themselves. They’re not going to think about looking at this game or that game. I think Dabo Swinney, because of the year that they went through last year, he’s got a team that’s anxious to get back to where they think they belong, which is winning the ACC and getting back into the playoff.”
Based on what he’s seen from Clemson this season, Herbstreit believes the Tigers – who have five regular season games remaining vs. Syracuse, at Notre Dame and then three straight home games against Louisville, Miami and South Carolina – belong in the conversation of the best teams in college football.
“You start to look at who they have to play… I mean, they’re going to be heavily favored,” Herbstreit said. “You start to look at what’s happening with Tennessee and Alabama, Ohio State and Michigan and Georgia and all these great teams that are out there. I don’t know why, after watching Clemson now for over half the year, why you can’t throw, clearly, their hat in the ring. A lot of people are kind of still waiting to see who they are, but I think from the NC State game on, I think they really have shown to be a complete team. Because in the preseason you talk about Georgia and the SEC and the Big Ten, and people are starting to forget about Clemson a little bit.”
Saturday’s game against the ACC’s only other unbeaten team in Syracuse (6-0, 3-0) is set for noon at Death Valley and will be televised on ABC.
“They have Syracuse next week, early kick, big energy, and they’ll try to just keep this ‘revenge tour’ – what we would call ‘revenge tour’ that they’re on – keep it going, see if they can win again and keep the momentum built that they have going right now,” Herbstreit said.
“I guess if it were at the dome, you would think uh oh, be careful,” he added. “But at Death Valley, I don’t know, can Syracuse go in there and win? I guess things happen. I don’t know what the spread will be, but I think Clemson will be pretty heavily favored.”
The Tigers opened as a 14-point favorite over the Orange according to Caesars Sportsbook.
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