Deshaun Watson Named Starter & Clemson Should Annihilate UNC

The Clemson Tigers may have been unable to leave Tallahassee with a victory over the No. 1 Florida State Seminoles this past Saturday, but there was a pretty significant silver lining to the loss. Deshaun Watson saw his first extended action during the game, taking over early in the first quarter and never returning to the bench. Watson completed 19-of-28 passes for 266 yards against the Seminoles defense.

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Whatever concerns Dabo Swinney and the coaches had about Watson’s ability to lead the offense were apparently assuaged by his performance against the Seminoles. During his post-game press conference, Swinney announced that Watson would get his first career start this Saturday, when Clemson welcomes the North Carolina Tar Heels to Death Valley.

"“Deshaun really separated. I mean, he made some big-time plays. A true freshman in that environment, he made some great plays, and the receivers made some great plays as well. He made some awesome runs, extended some plays. I’m proud of him, I’m really proud of him. He gave us a chance to win the game. As far as where we go from here, we’ll continue to evaluate but I think that after tonight’s performance he’s earned the right to have a chance to go be the starter next week.”"

One thing is for sure, I would not want to be a Tar Heel right now.

It is pretty clear that the North Carolina defense–to put it mildly–is not very good this year The Tar Heels are coming off their first loss of the season after giving up 70 points to the ECU Pirates. To UNC’s credit, they scored enough to at least keep ECU concerned about the outcome and, as a result, the Pirates just continued to pile on the points until the clock ran out.

UNC is now 121st in the nation in points allowed, with an average of 42 points per game.

But this past weekend was hardly the start of the North Carolina defense’s troubles. UNC is now 121st in the nation in points allowed, with an average of 42 points per game. ECU’s total certainly skews that a bit but, actually, their current average may actually be pretty close to the reality of this defense. Prior to the ECU game, the Tar Heels gave up 29 points to Liberty and 27 points to San Diego State, and both games took place in Chapel Hill.

With UNC giving up nearly 30 points to those teams in the comfort of their own stadium, it wasn’t too hard to imagine what a very good offense could do to them.

Watson and the Clemson offense are going to score on UNC. They are going to score a lot. The only reason I won’t say that the Watson-led Tigers could top the 70 points ECU hung on them is that I don’t think the Clemson defense will allow the game to remain competitive long enough for that to happen.

ECU gave up 40 points to the Tar Heels, but Clemson may only give up half of that. The North Carolina offense is explosive but it has also been mistake-prone and it hasn’t faced anyone that can attack them the way Clemson will.

And on top of everything else, Clemson is going to come into this game angry. The Tigers should have won in Tallahasee Saturday night and they know it. They may just be inclined to work off their frustration by mauling North Carolina.

Deshaun Watson is a special talent that fact is going to be plainly obvious this weekend. It is not going to be a good week to be a Tar Heel.

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