Clemson handed Boston College its first defeat of the season in Week 5 of college football. The Tigers won 19-13 in a game that kept fans on the edge of their seats.
One of the key players coming out of this game was Clemson running back Kobe Pace. After being called for a false-start penalty that had the coaching staff crazed on the sideline, Pace quickly turned his game around to score a 59-yard touchdown run on the next drive.
Pace reacted to that penalty.
“Things happened. You just got to move on, have short-term memory and just play the game,” Pace said. “I mean, mistakes are going to happen. That was on me. (Clemson coach Dabo Swinney) chewed me out. I took it and just moved onto the next play.”
“I thought he did a good job,” offensive coordinator Tony Elliott said. “Really proud of him in how he responded because he had the false-start penalty there and obviously Coach (Swinney) was coaching him very hard, and he comes back and he puts together a really, really good game. Caught the ball on the perimeter well for us. He looked like the guy that we all saw coming out of spring ball. Just looked confident and found the big run.”
Pace told the media this week he thinks his team took a step forward in Saturday’s game.
“I feel like we all worked together. We all came together,” Pace said. “That’s one thing that we’d been missing out on, just all coming together and just playing as one.”
Pace recorded a career-high 125 yards on 18 carries with one touchdown in the game. The 5-foot-10, 210-pound running back from Cedartown, Georgia, said he loved playing in the atmosphere Saturday night in Death Valley, admitting the Tigers “fed off of the energy that the crowd gave.”