Clemson Football: Offensive Grades in victory vs. FSU
The Clemson football team defeated rival Florida State in Death Valley this past Saturday. Here are our offensive grades for the Tigers.
The Clemson football team took care of business Saturday afternoon with an impressive 45-14 win over the Florida State Seminoles.
The Tigers took control of the game early and never looked back, improving to 6-0 on the season.
Here’s a look at our offensive grades for the matchup.
Offensive Report Card:
For the first time really all season, the offense came out firing. There was no ‘feeling out process’ or waiting to take what the defense gave them. Instead, the unit just attacked.
Trevor Lawrence hit Tee Higgins on an impressive fade route and then the Tigers followed that up with a halfback pass from Travis Etienne on the same drive. Clemson got into the end zone on a little shuttle pass from Lawrence to Etienne to open up the scoring.
Lawrence would finish the day completing 17-of-25 passes for 170 yards and three touchdowns to one interception. He also had 40 yards rushing and one touchdown on the ground.
Etienne carried the ball 17 times for 127 yards while Lyn-J Dixon added 49 yards on 10 carries. Justyn Ross had his first big game of the season, catching five passes for 61 yards and two touchdowns. Tee Higgins had two receptions for 44 yards and Amari Rodgers had five receptions for 44 yards.
For the first time all season, we really saw the Lawrence-Etienne duo that we thought we’d see coming into the season. The two balanced really well and did an excellent job tearing apart that Florida State defense.
The offense scored 45 points and could’ve easily had more. Dabo Swinney played a bunch of different guys and built valuable depth along the way.
The only down spots in the offensive attack came when Lawrence made an ill-advised throw for an interception where it looked as if he lost his balance trying to remain in-bounds, and when the unit had two possessions where they were inside the Florida State 10-yard line and couldn’t come away with any points.
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Offensive Grade: B+
Overall, this was a much better performance. The play-calling was much better and the Clemson football team did an excellent job attacking Florida State and taking advantage of their talent instead of playing conservative.