Clemson Football: How Week 5 in college football impacts the Tigers

While Clemson Football got their first ACC victory against Syracuse this weekend, quite a bit transpired around them.

Perhaps the news of the biggest impact came from Durham. Notre Dame beat Duke 21-14, but the bad news was Blue Devil quarterback Riley Leonard was injured late in the game. We don’t have word yet on how serious the injury is but it wouldn’t be surprising if he missed significant time.

Duke is a good team, but losing Leonard will put the Blue Devils at a disadvantage. If Clemson has any hopes of qualifying for the ACC Championship Game they will need Duke or Florida State to lose at least three games.

They will also need the Louisville Cardinals to drop a couple games at least. They defeated NC State on Friday evening 13-10 in Raleigh. I thought NC State would benefit from the pairing of Robert Anae and Brennan Armstrong reuniting, but it hasn’t worked out so far.

The reunion of Frank Cignetti and Phil Jurkovec in Pittsburgh has been even worse. Virginia Tech defeated Pitt 38-21 in Blacksburg Saturday.

Poor Tony Elliott is snakebit. Virginia played a close game but fell to Boston College 27-24. The Cavs are still winless on the season.

In the “Seriously?” game of the week, Georgia Tech was defeated by MAC cellar-dweller Bowling Green 38-27 on their home field in Atlanta. The Yellow Jackets held a two-touchdown lead before allowing BGSU to score 38 unanswered points.

Clemson Football won while rival South Carolina couldn’t overcome Tennessee

Clemson’s other non-conference opponent went to Rocky Top, and the Vols got revenge for last season’s upset loss. Tennessee defeated South Carolina 41-20 Saturday. Spencer Rattler was sacked six times and threw a pick-six interception.

It could be that this is not the year for teams named the Tigers. LSU dropped their second game of the season to Ole Miss, which likely eliminated them from playoff contention. The Auburn Tigers pushed Georgia to the end but fell short 27-20. Memphis did win a close one against Boise State 35-32 to go to 4-1 to have the best record of all the Tigers right now.

The biggest upset of the weekend came on Friday night when DJ Uiagalelei led Oregon State to victory over 10th ranked Utah 21-7. Sadly, this was a long time coming for the Utes, who aren’t really Top 10 material without starting quarterback Cam Rising.