Clemson Football: Bless Your Heart – Wake Forest Edition

I’m little late to the party this week, had some fire drills in real life to have to manage, so it’s taken me till Saturday to get to this week’s “Bless Your Heart”. This week is just a couple hours stroll for Clemson football north to Winston-Salem and Wake Forest.

To start, what the heck is a Demon Deacon?

Yeah, yeah, I get the whole “Southern Baptist” heritage thing, but the artwork of the mascot looks more like a disgruntled usher than Demon Deacon. Also, who thought that was a good mascot in the 1st place? Everyone I’ve known closely to be a deacon has been more of a “dang it there goes my Sunday night” type of person instead of a said “Demon”. But I digress.

The Tigers make the trek north to the sprawling metropolis of Winston-Salem and the most intimidating environment south of Boone and north of Charlotte. In all seriousness, there did used to be a time not that long ago where a sense of dread would come over the fanbase when everyone saw where Wake was on the schedule.

For the better part of the West and Bowden years, Clemson fans spent that time wondering which versions of the Tigers would show up year to year against Wake. During the Bowden years, Clemson was only able to win by more than 10 twice, once in 2000 and once in 2007. Dabo Swinney has made it a consistent point to take the guess work out of the schedule.

There was a stat came out this week that during Clemson’s 13-0-win streak, the Tigers have only had 1 single game that was a one possession game. That would be in 2011, when the Tigers charged back from a 14-point deficit to win on the final play of the game

Since that game, Clemson hasn’t really looked back. Despite 2 separate seasons in that time frame that have had less than optimal offensive results, Clemson has found a way to be disruptive on defense and take control of the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball.

The trendy pick this week for people who think they are smart is saying that this is Wake’s best chance to win and that they will do so. Wake has arguably a top 3 QB in the ACC, someone who needs to be taken seriously alongside his stable of WRs going against an injured and inexperienced Clemson secondary.

Wake may get some yards and points, but Clemson football will get the win today

The point of saying that is that Wake is going to get passing yards today, and maybe score a few points. But the glaring issue that people seem to forget is that Clemson’s defensive front presents a major mismatch. The “Dave Clawson” long mesh is a novel concept until you come across the type of front that takes away all options you are looking for.

Secondly, Clemson’s offensive line isn’t getting enough credit for slowly but surely building confidence, especially in the run game. That looks like it could continue today. Liberty was able to run the ball more than effectively on the Deacs and there seem to be issues with Wake’s LBs. I expect that to get exposed today.

Wake is the trendy pick, but trends die hard.

Oh yeah, and Bryan Bresee is back.

Bless your heart, Wake Forest.