It wasn’t pretty but a win is a win. This Virginia team is a solid squad. They are well coached and don’t make many mistakes. The Tigers will be better for having being pushed tonight.
- 35 straight regular season wins for Clemson sets a new school record and a new ACC record.
- The defensive line didn’t play as bad as it may have appeared on the surface. Make no mistake, it wasn’t great, but maybe not as bad as some think. No, they were not getting a lot of pressure but they played with more three man fronts than they had in the first two games and they did very little blitzing. Also did not have Tyler Davis or Justin Foster again despite neither being listed as unavailable and that makes a difference. At times tonight it looked like the plan was more to contain the quarterback than pressure him.
- This almost seemed like a team looking ahead to the top ten showdown with Miami next weekend yet still beat a solid Cavs team comfortably.
- The secondary was lights out. Outside of a couple of plays by Mario Goodrich, the defensive backs were excellent in coverage. Derion Kendrick and Andrew Booth played fantastic.
- Speaking of Booth, that one handed interception was something to behold.
- Travis Etienne is not quite as hard to bring down after the weight loss. Still as fast as ever though and that makes him a dangerous weapon in the screen games as we saw tonight. The Tigers running back had more than 100 receiving yards.
- Trevor Lawrence wasn’t quite as sharp as he had been in the first two games, but he was still pretty dang good and this was against a much better defense. Another 300 yard passing game and three more touchdowns, giving him ten total this season.
- The offensive line has to be better in the run game. They weren’t terrible tonight but at times they were not getting much push. That will have to change before next weekend. Have to be more consistent.
- Amari Rodgers has evolved into a grown man receiver. 6 catches 72 yards and 2 more touchdowns.
- Lot to teach from out of this game. With Miami coming up, this team being pushed for four quarters might be exactly what they needed.
