Control the line of scrimmage
Against FCS Monmouth, Florida Atlantic had over 200 yards of rushing. Things looked good.
Against Ohio (the MAC team, not the Buckeyes), FAU was barely able to scrape together any yards on the ground. Officially, they tallied 5 yards on 15 carries. Even if you take away the negative yardage from Thompson’s three sacks, it was 27 yards of rushing.
If Clemson’s defensive line can play as well this Saturday as they did this past Saturday against CSU, then they should have no troubles from the Owls’ rushing attack.
On the other side of the ball, the Clemson offensive line has played fairly well, but they have had a role to play in the mistakes. Several of the blunders either involved an individual mistake by an offensive lineman or a general lack of protection for Klubnik.
Knowing that Klubnik makes poor choices when under pressure, the offensive line will need to work hard to keep their quarterback out of positions when he will not have time to think through his progressions.
The FAU defensive line isn’t a pushover, but the Clemson offensive line should be able to have success in this game.
Off-topic: FAU has a great nominee for the All-Name Team – linebacker Jackson Ambush, who had eight tackles and one of the Owls’ tackles for loss against Ohio.