Clemson Football: Offensive Grades vs. Syracuse Orange 2019

The Clemson football offense had its ups and downs Saturday night. Here’s our offensive grades for the Tigers against the Syracuse Orange.

The Clemson football team came away with a 41-6 victory over the Syracuse Orange Saturday night.

The game was Homecoming for the Orange and the Carrier Dome was packed with more than 50,000 fans hoping to see their team pull off an improbable upset.

The Tigers methodically put the game away, though, forcing the Orange into submission and coming away with an impressive 34 point victory.

As we do each week, let’s take a look at the offensive grades for Clemson football.

Rushing Offense:

The Tigers did not take much time establishing the run. Syracuse came into this one looking to take Travis Etienne out of the equation and they did that, for the most part. He rushed 14 times for 76 yards (5.4 yards per carry) while his counterpart Lyn-J Dixon rushed six times for just 19 yards.

Trevor Lawrence had an impressive day on the ground, rushing four times for 42 yards and a touchdown. Freshman Chez Mellusi also broke off a huge 57-yard touchdown run late in the game.

Overall, the main issue with the running game was that the Tigers got away from it in the first half. Yes, there were times when Clemson football wasn’t successful, but the rushers were still fine. It would’ve been nice to see them get a few runs to the outside just to show something different.

We didn’t see any major explosive plays- other than Mellusi’s at the end of the game- in the running game, but that’s more of a credit to Syracuse than anything else.

Grade: C+

Passing Offense:

Trevor Lawrence had some good and he had some bad Saturday night.

Lawrence threw for a career-high 395 yards and three touchdowns. That was the good. He also threw two interceptions and completed just 56 percent of his passes. That was the bad.

While neither the completion percentage nor interceptions are things to lose sleep over at night, they definitely show that the Tigers have room for improvement. Tee Higgins did admit after the game that he ran the wrong route on Lawrence’s first interception.

There were times when Lawrence was expecting his receiver to run a different route and placed the ball in a different space as a result. Timing and synchronization are things that will come along as the season progresses.

Grade: C+

Overall Report Card vs. Syracuse:

In the end, you know the Clemson football fan base has become spoiled when you can say that the Tigers played a ‘C+’ game offensively and still scored 41 points, but that’s exactly what they did.

The offense left a lot of points on the board and the unit recognizes that it has room for improvement as the season progresses.

Trevor Lawrence, Travis Etienne, Justyn Ross, Amari Rodgers, Tee Higgins, Lyn-J Dixon. They’re all going to get better as they spend more time playing together. The offensive line has graded really well and they’re only going to get better.

This is a talented unit and they’re going to find that extra gear at some point this season. When they do, it’s over for opposing defenses.