Clemson struggles, still blows out Louisville: Box Score, Stats, Analysis

The Clemson football team looked ugly in their win over Louisville, but still extended the winning streak and came away with a blowout victory.

The Clemson football team came out sluggish and rather disappointing, but put an exclamation point on their performance by the end of the day.

The Tigers forced two turnovers in the first quarter, but the offense was unable to capitalize. Trevor Lawrence threw two interceptions and the offense looked out of sync.

Even so, BT Potter hit an early field goal from 51 yards with 9:27 left in the first quarter. In the second, Clemson would go up 10-0 after an impressive grab from Joseph Ngata in the back of the end zone. Louisville hit a field goal with 4:57 remaining in the second quarter to make it 10-3, but the Tigers answered with their best drive of the day to that point which was capped off with a 25-yard touchdown pass from Trevor Lawrence to Justyn Ross.

After the two teams traded possessions for much of the third quarter, Travis Etienne blew the doors off with a 49-yard touchdown run with 1:35 left to make it a 24-3 game. The Tigers scored three more touchdowns in the fourth quarter and came away with a 45-10 victory.

Box Score:

Stats (Via ESPN):

Passing– Trevor Lawrence 20-of-29 for 233 yards passing, 3 TDs, 2 INTs.

Rushing– Travis Etienne 14 carries for 192 yards, 1 TD; Trevor Lawrence 10 carries for 47 yards; Chez Mellusi 5 carries for 35 yards, 1 TD.

Receiving- Amari Rodgers 3 catches for 78 yards; Justyn Ross 5 catches for 55 yards, 1 TD; Diondre Overton 3 catches for 43 yards.

Analysis:

In many ways, this was a tale of two different units. The Clemson offense struggled. They couldn’t get into the end zone, the passing game was out of sync for much of the afternoon and they didn’t do a great job taking advantage of Louisville miscues.

The defense, on the other hand, played lights out for most of the afternoon. Coming into the game, analysts harped on how explosive Louisville’s offense was. Well, the Cardinals turned the ball over several times and this Clemson defense- led by Isaiah Simmons– did a great job of pressuring the quarterback and getting in the backfield on running plays.

Towards the end of the third quarter and into the fourth, things started opening up for the offense. Plays that weren’t working earlier began to open up and a lot of that had to do with Jeff Scott and Tony Elliott selling out to the running game in the second half.

Though national analysts will just talk about how Clemson struggled with a mediocre Louisville team, Tiger fans should still be impressed that this team played as bad as they did and still came away with a 35-point win, beating the spread.

The Tigers will host Boston College at 7:30 p.m. next Saturday live on the ACC Network.