Myles Murphy has no regrets walking away from Clemson’s 10-3 loss to No. 5 Georgia this past Saturday.
“After the game, Coach (Venables) and Coach Swinney, they both knew the entire team played with lights out effort,” Murphy told reporters during Monday’s media availability.
Going up against Georgia’s high-powered offense gave the Tigers a chance to see how their defense stacked up against the country’s No. 5 team.
“Week 1 of the season and knowing that we’re only going to get better throughout the season, honestly that’s just a great starting point,” he said. “It makes me feel good. It makes our defense feel good.”
While Clemson’s defensive performance wasn’t enough to lead the Tigers to their first victory of the season, they can hang their hats on shutting down Georgia’s offense; holding the Bulldogs to just three points and 256 yards of total offense.
Murphy, himself, was in mid-season form. He recorded four tackles (1.5 for loss) with a sack. Clemson’s sophomore defensive end is picking up where he left off in 2020, as was named a freshman All-American for his performance in 12 games (six starts) last season.
“We most definitely came into the game, (with) high-energy,” Murphy said. “We wanted to get better at the point of attack, stop them in their tracks. Honestly, I feel like that’s what we did (Saturday) and from there on we just fed off that energy, fed off that aggressiveness and did what we knew we could do, as far as just playing with aggression, staying precise in our keys and our techniques.”
Everything Clemson knew about its defense coming into this season was on full display Saturday, according to Murphy.
“It showed the veteranism with the linebackers, the D-Line that we had and the secondary,” he said of the defense. “Showed the speed. Showed strength. Showed just the instincts from the past few seasons. Everything showed up. Everything played out well for our defense.”
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