Clemson football: 5 areas to place blame in loss to Notre Dame

Five areas to place blame in the loss to Notre Dame for Clemson football

The Clemson football team lost its first regular season game in nearly a half-decade Saturday evening in a double-overtime thriller against Notre Dame.

The Tigers entered their matchup with the Fighting Irish holding a 36-game winning streak in the regular season and came away a 47-40 loser in double-overtime.

While everything is still certainly on the table for Clemson football in terms of winning the ACC Championship and getting to CFB playoff, there’s no doubt that the defeat was disappointing for Tiger fans to endure.

Here’s a look at five areas to place blame in the loss to Notre Dame for Clemson football.

5. Two veteran turnovers

We’ll go ahead and start our list off with one of the most obvious downfalls of the game: Two absolutely terrible turnovers by the Tigers’ best two playmakers.

Travis Etienne couldn’t handle a pitch from D.J. Uiagalelei in the first half. The ball bounced off his hands and straight into the hands of a Notre Dame defender, who ran it in for six.

The very next drive, Uiagalelei threw a pass right over the middle of the field that would’ve resulted in a first down. Instead, Amari Rodgers caught and fumbled it, giving the Fighting Irish a short field and that resulted in a field goal.

Notre Dame was gifted 10 points from these two blunders and you could’ve been talking about an even larger point swing considering the Irish defense had done very little to stop the Tiger offense.