Clemson defender Ruke Orhorhoro is doing all he can to help his team produce defensive success, even if it’s at the expense of his own stats.
In the Tigers’ latest ACC win over Louisville, Wes Goodwin’s defense saw much-needed success after what was a disappointingly lackluster performance the week prior at Notre Dame.
With a pair of big performances for both Jeremiah Trotter Jr. and Barrett Carter out of the linebacker corps, Orhorhoro was more than happy to play a small part up front in their second-level success despite only picking up two tackles and a half tackle for loss of his own in the 31-16 win.
“It means I’m doing something right,” Orhorhoro said. “If I take up two, that means somebody’s coming free. I’ll take up two all day if my teammates get to eat behind me and just do what’s best for the team. It gives me a little satisfaction. When the play is there, I make it, but other than that, my linebackers do a great job with just flowing behind us, playing off of us and making us right.”
From the get-go, the defensive tackle knew it was going to be a big game for not just the linebacker pair, but the entire defense.
“Barrett hit a guy, I don’t know what play it was, but he just hit him, and it was loud, so I was like, ‘All right, this is going to be one of those games,’ and it was just hard hits across the board,” the veteran said. “JP [Jalyn Phillips] was hitting people left and right, Trotter hit the quarterback really hard, and I knew they were going to put together a good game. Barrett went crazy; after I saw him hurdle that guy, I didn’t even know what to say.”
Now with another ACC challenge in Miami on the horizon, Orhorhoro wants to keep the same mindset that led to their defensive success over the Cardinals — a mindset centered around playing free and having fun.
“It was fun just shifting the mindset,” Orhorhoro said. “We wanted to go out there and dominate and just play to the best of our abilities. We set a goal as a defense just to start playing free and not worrying about anything, but just let everything fall where it falls and that’s what we did. We went out there and played free, everybody played free, and it turned out pretty good, so hope we’re going to keep doing that these next couple of games.”
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