Clemson football bailed out by the football gods yet again in ugly win vs. Syracuse

If you’re a Clemson football fan who loves high blood pressure, anxiety and potential cardiac arrest, Friday night was for you.

Well, it seems the entire 2021 season might be for you.

Coming off a bye week, there was hope that the Clemson football offense would show a renewed spirit and that we would see sizeable growth from the unit. That didn’t happen.

The Tigers mustered just 17 points against Syracuse and that led to yet another game going down to the wire, with Clemson somehow coming out on top.

The defense had its opportunities to put the game away when Syracuse got the ball, but instead the Orange converted on a 3rd and 15 and then again on a 4th down to eventually get into field goal range. Luckily, the football gods shined down on Clemson yet again and the attempt was missed, allowing the Tigers to escape with a 17-14 win.

The football gods aren’t always going to bail out Clemson football, and that should be concerning

We can all see that the football gods haven’t necessarily been kind to Clemson this season in terms of injuries, but they’ve been extremely giving in late games.

The Tigers improved to 4-2 on the season with the win over Syracuse, but let’s be honest here: They’re just a few plays away from being 1-5.

For those that need a refresher, they lost games to Georgia and NC State– both of which could’ve been blowouts, honestly– had a few plays not gone in the Tigers’ favor. And then Georgia Tech came down to a last-second play. And then Boston College was literally inside the Clemson 15-yard line when a fumbled snap allowed the Tigers to escape with a victory.

Flukes happen, but honestly it should be concerning that the Tigers are having to escape this way basically every single week now.

And, honestly, as long as the offense continues to be as bad as it is, every single game is going to be like this.

You’re going to have an ugly, grind-it-out affair in which you hope for the best at the end. So far, as crazy as it might seem, the odds have actually been more favorable to Clemson. But, that’s not going to be the case forever.

If Dabo Swinney and Co. want to have any shot at getting back to the ACC Championship, something has to be figured out on offense and, frankly, right now we haven’t seen anything to indicate a major improvement is coming.