Clemson Football: Tigers survive and advance, 51-45 in double OT

Last week I wrote that sometimes you gotta hug ugly in college football (h/t Mack Brown) and for Clemson football there was a lot of ugly against Wake Forest.

But in a sport where Appalachian State walks into Kyle Field and leaves with a win and Marshall says “Howdy-do” in Notre Dame Stadium, well, sometimes you just have to survive and advance.

Look, it wasn’t pretty and I had a bad feeling when the Tigers were settling for field goals in the second quarter that this was going to be a long, tough day when Sam Hartman was throwing darts.

Hartman is a very good quarterback and, as I mentioned earlier this week, the backend of the Clemson defense is not good right now.

Good teams find a way to win, though and that is what the Tigers did.

Good, not great.  Not at the level of the Tigers National Championship teams for sure, but we’re only four games in.

The national media has continued to ignore the improvement of D.J. Uiagalelei over the course of the first three games.  It will be tough to ignore after today’s 26 for 41 performance, which went for 371 yards and 5 touchdowns, along with 52 yards on the ground.

It’s weird how disrespected the 25th highest rated passer per PFF.com was coming into the game, almost like he was still in the mid 200s like last year. Narratives are lazy and first impressions hard to overcome in college football as John Chancey pointed out earlier this week.

There was poetic justice in D.J. having a day, when all everyone talked about was Sam Hartman (and he was fantastic), but it was D.J. with his team down by 8 in the third quarter that led his team back with his arm, legs and leadership.

Clemson football: In a sport where Appalachian State walks into Kyle Field and leaves with a win and Marshall says “Howdy-do” in Notre Dame Stadium sometimes you just have to survive and advance

There was also poetic justice in Nate Wiggins being in on the final play of the game as Hartman’s fourth down pass fell incomplete.

The Tigers never gave up and never gave in.

A win doesn’t absolve the team of the questions about performance and coaching, but it does allow the team to survive and advance and there are plenty of teams and college football that would switch places with you in a second.