Clemson Football: Ugly first half vs. Syracuse a result of bad focus

The ugly first half from Clemson football is a result of bad focus

The Clemson football team had been dominant each of the last two weeks against the Miami Hurricanes and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

That wasn’t the case Saturday afternoon against the Syracuse Orange in the first half.

While Clemson football was favored by an ACC record 46.5 points coming into the game, the Tigers were certainly less-than-stellar against the Orange. Clemson led just 27-14 at the end of the half and the score was even more disappointing than what it looked like on the surface.

Clemson football has to come out every week with the right amount of focus

While the Tiger defense was solid for the majority of the first other than giving up a touchdown on a short field, the offense and special teams were atrocious.

Trevor Lawrence had his worst half of the season by far and simply wasn’t accurate. The worst play of the half for him was a pick-six that happened after he threw a pass behind Amari Rodgers. Rodgers turned around and was able to get a hand on it, but that just batted the ball up in the air and allowed the Syracuse defender to pick it off.

In addition to that pick-six, Clemson suffered a blocked punt that set Syracuse up with its only other touchdown of the half. Travis Etienne fumbled the ball early on in the game. And B.T. Potter missed a chip shot field goal.

The most disappointing portion of the first half, though, was the offense’s inability to get anything going. The Tigers couldn’t finish off drives and they couldn’t make plays when they needed to.

This first half showed us that Clemson football has to show up focused for every single game- because Syracuse is likely the worst team in the ACC. The Tigers are capable of playing much better than they did in that first half and hopefully we will see a more focused product moving forward throughout the rest of the 2020 season.