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Clemson Football EXPOSED AGAIN | Tigers MUST CHANGE Everything | Dabo Swinney | VT v Clemson · ACC Football Addiction (Atlantic Coast Conference)

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  Speaker 1: Seven weeks ago, I sat here in this seat after
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: the opener in Baton Rouge, and Dabo Sweeney said something
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: that will stick with a lot of people and did
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: stick with a lot of people. He said the best
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: thing about that one is that it's over. And he
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: was right. It was over. You could file it away.
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  Speaker 1: Season opener, hostile road environment, new coach on the other
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  Speaker 1: sideline with a building full of transfers and something to prove.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: There was a weather delay. The wrong quarterback started that game.
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  Speaker 1: You could explain it away. You could put it in
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  Speaker 1: a box. You could tape that box shut and you
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: could say just one night. That's what you do with
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: an outlier. But here's the thing about outliers. There only
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: remain outliers if there's nothing else to line up next
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  Speaker 1: to them. And Saturday night in Death Valley on homecoming
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  Speaker 1: against a program that Clemson had beaten seven straight times,
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  Speaker 1: something lined up next to it. My name is TJ Pittenger.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: This is ACC Football Addiction. We are presented by PrizePix.
• 1:00
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  Speaker 1: Before we get to what happened, I want to remind
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  Speaker 1: you where this team was coming into the night. Because
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't in an awful spot. I don't think they
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: were in a great spot, but it wasn't bad. Not
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  Speaker 1: even close. After LSU, Clemson went to work. Tate Reynolds
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  Speaker 1: came in. for an injured and underperforming Christopher Vazina against
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  Speaker 1: Georgia Southern, and the Tigers won that one. Not convincingly,
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  Speaker 1: but they won 22-7. Reynolds got his first start against
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  Speaker 1: North Carolina. Clemson clawed back from a 17-3 hold to
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  Speaker 1: beat Bill Belichick's team. Then you got a road win
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  Speaker 1: at Cal. Then Miami was a reality check, 41-13. There's
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  Speaker 1: no sugarcoating that. The Hurricanes are playing like the best
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  Speaker 1: team in the country right now, and they showed it.
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  Speaker 1: But Clemson came out of the open week, and they
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  Speaker 1: handled Charleston Southern. Suddenly, you're looking at 4-2, 2-1 in
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  Speaker 1: the conference, with a schedule that we were honest said
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  Speaker 1: set up pretty well. Five straight games against teams sitting
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  Speaker 1: below Clemson in the ACC standings. Dabo said it himself
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  Speaker 1: during the week. This is where they'd hoped to be.
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  Speaker 1: One of the teams with a shot. That's not a
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  Speaker 1: program in crisis. It was a program with a path.
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  Speaker 1: And Virginia Tech was the first step on that path. Now,
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  Speaker 1: let's be honest, the Hokies were not some pushover. This
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  Speaker 1: wasn't a massive spread where Clemson was expected to win
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  Speaker 1: going away. James Franklin is in year one in Blacksburg.
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  Speaker 1: He took over a team that went 3-9 last season.
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  Speaker 1: And seven games in, he already had five wins. They
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  Speaker 1: had the more productive quarterback, in this game by a
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  Speaker 1: pretty wide margin. Ethan Gronkmeyer followed Franklin from Penn State,
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  Speaker 1: came in completing almost 73% of his throws with 15
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  Speaker 1: touchdowns and two picks. And Clemson knew Gronkmeyer because he's
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  Speaker 1: the guy who beat him last year in the pinstripe bowl.
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  Speaker 1: There was another layer too. Clemson's defensive coordinator, Tom Allen,
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  Speaker 1: ran Franklin's defense at Penn State in 24. It was
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  Speaker 1: the year that the Nittany Lions made the college football
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  Speaker 1: playoff semifinals. So this was a chess match where both
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  Speaker 1: guys had already seen the other one's board. And for
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  Speaker 1: most of the night, Allen was winning. The Clemson defense
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  Speaker 1: came out with its hair on fire. Back-to-back three and
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  Speaker 1: outs to open the game. Mayo broke up a third
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  Speaker 1: down throw on the opening drive. Adams got home for
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  Speaker 1: a sack on the next one. Death Valley was rocking.
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  Speaker 1: The Hokies eventually strung together a long, grinding drive. 13 plays,
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  Speaker 1: but Clemson tightened up in the red zone and held
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  Speaker 1: them to a field goal. 3-0. Clemson's offense answered. The
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  Speaker 1: Tigers would kick a field goal of their own, made
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  Speaker 1: the score 3-3. And then came that drive that told you,
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  Speaker 1: hindsight's 20-20, but told you a lot about how this
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  Speaker 1: night was going to go. Virginia Tech is backed up.
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  Speaker 1: Clemson has them on third down. The defense makes the stop,
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  Speaker 1: except there's a flag. It's pass interference. The drive is extended.
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  Speaker 1: Clemson holds again and forces a fourth and one. Virginia
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  Speaker 1: Tech gets the yard. The drive is extended again. A
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  Speaker 1: few plays later, Grunkmeier finds tight end Luke Reynolds for
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  Speaker 1: a touchdown. It's three to ten. Hokies. They lead at
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  Speaker 1: the half. Now think about that for a second. The
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  Speaker 1: defense won the drive twice and it didn't matter. Hold
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  Speaker 1: that thought for a moment. We're going to come back
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  Speaker 1: to it. Because the numbers at halftime were honestly insane.
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  Speaker 1: alarming and not on the defensive side. Clemson had under
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  Speaker 1: a hundred yards total in the first half, 27 passing yards.
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  Speaker 1: The Clemson defense held a top three passing offense in
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  Speaker 1: the ACC to under 90 yards through the air. It
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  Speaker 1: was getting after Gronkmeyer and it was still trailing by
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  Speaker 1: a touchdown because the offense on their own side could
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  Speaker 1: not hold up its end of the bargain. Virginia Tech
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  Speaker 1: had the ball for almost 18 of the first 30 minutes.
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  Speaker 1: I think that matters. Every one of those minutes is
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  Speaker 1: a minute that your defense is on the field. Early
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  Speaker 1: in the third quarter, your kicker kicked again and hit it, 10-6.
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  Speaker 1: And that's the story of this offense in tonight's game.
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  Speaker 1: Get close, kick it, hope it's enough. Except this time,
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  Speaker 1: for a little while, it was more than that because
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  Speaker 1: the defense kept making plays. You got back-to-back sacks. You
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  Speaker 1: pinned Virginia Tech all the way back on their own
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  Speaker 1: one-yard line. Clemson got the ball with a short field.
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  Speaker 1: And Tay Reynolds ends up taking it in himself. That
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  Speaker 1: drive wasn't very long, 65 yards. You got a lead, 13-10.
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  Speaker 1: First rushing touchdown, I believe, of his career. Clemson's first
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  Speaker 1: lead of the night. Death Valley finally came alive. Clemson
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  Speaker 1: tacked on another field goal, and it was 16-10. Just
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  Speaker 1: three drives out of halftime. Three scores. For the first
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  Speaker 1: time in a long time, you could feel this offense breathing.
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  Speaker 1: And then nothing. Clemson didn't score again for the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the night. Not a field goal, not a first
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  Speaker 1: and goal, nothing. Which meant your defense was going to
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  Speaker 1: have to finish the job. Virginia Tech kicked a field
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  Speaker 1: goal to make it 16-13. And then the Hokies got
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  Speaker 1: the ball back with the game on the line. 11 plays,
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  Speaker 1: 69 yards, almost five minutes of clock time. And Clemson
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  Speaker 1: helped them out every step of the way. Unnecessary roughness
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  Speaker 1: call on Gronkmeyer. That one got washed out by a
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  Speaker 1: Hokie holding call, so it didn't cost you any yardage,
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  Speaker 1: but it didn't back up Virginia Tech either. Didn't stop there.
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  Speaker 1: Pass interference call. More than one of them. Chains kept moving.
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  Speaker 1: Clock kept running. Death Valley kept getting quieter and quieter
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  Speaker 1: with every flag as the nerves and the anticipation for
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  Speaker 1: what was unfortunately coming came. Remember that drive in the
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  Speaker 1: second quarter? The one where the defense won twice and
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  Speaker 1: still lost? It was the same movie, man. Bigger stakes.
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  Speaker 1: with just under two minutes to go, Grunkmeier found Luke
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  Speaker 1: Reynolds again, five yards out, touchdown. The same tight end
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  Speaker 1: who scored Virginia Tech's first touchdown scored their last touchdown.
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  Speaker 1: Clemson still had a chance. Under two minutes, they needed
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  Speaker 1: a touchdown. It ended with Tate Reynolds getting sacked on
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  Speaker 1: fourth down, and that's your ballgame. For three quarters, the
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  Speaker 1: defense was the reason Clemson was in this game. And late,
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  Speaker 1: when the game was there to be closed out, it
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  Speaker 1: couldn't get off the field. Now, I'm not telling you
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  Speaker 1: that I blame them for that. The offense did not
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  Speaker 1: do enough in this game to win. But in that
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  Speaker 1: critical moment where you had to have a stop, the
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  Speaker 1: defense couldn't finish. So it's on both sides. Final score
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  Speaker 1: is 20-16. That streak of seven straight wins over the Hokies,
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  Speaker 1: all of them under Dabo, done. Virginia Tech's first win
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  Speaker 1: in Clemson, I believe the broadcast said since 2007. The
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  Speaker 1: Hokies are bowl eligible before Halloween and Clemson is four
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  Speaker 1: and three and two and two in the ACC. Three losses,
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  Speaker 1: two in conference before November. So let's talk about very
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  Speaker 1: quickly what this means and then we'll get out of here.
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  Speaker 1: Before we do that, I'll just quickly give some love
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  Speaker 1: to alumni hall. Listen, both fan bases watching this. I'll
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  Speaker 1: do the Virginia tech side of this for first thing
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: in the morning doing Clemson first, but make sure that
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: you are using our code CFA 15 at alumni hall,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: both online and in person. The code works for both takeaway.
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  Speaker 1: Number one, I'm not blaming them, but the defense finally
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  Speaker 1: ran out of rope. I want to be really fair
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  Speaker 1: here because it's easy to look at the score that
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  Speaker 1: happened with a minute 44 left to say, well, the
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  Speaker 1: defense blew it and late in the game. Yeah. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I guess that's fair. You had a six point lead
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  Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter at home and he gave up
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  Speaker 1: 10 straight points. And on the drive that decided the game,
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  Speaker 1: it handed Virginia Tech free yards with flags. That's my takeaway.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's real. I think Tom Allen
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  Speaker 1: would be the first to tell you that. I think
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  Speaker 1: that the defensive players would say, hey, we've got to
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  Speaker 1: rise up. But man, look at that. Blaming the defense
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  Speaker 1: here is not what I would do. Look at the
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  Speaker 1: rest of the night, man. Six sacks. He had a
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  Speaker 1: season high there. Virginia Tech. The third best passing offense
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  Speaker 1: in the league coming in held to 234 total yards.
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  Speaker 1: That's the kind of performance that's going to win you
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  Speaker 1: a lot of football games. But you have to ask
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  Speaker 1: why it got to that point. The defense has been
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  Speaker 1: carrying this program for a month. Coming in, it had
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  Speaker 1: held three of its six opponents to 10 points or less.
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  Speaker 1: Tom Allen's unit was ranked top 20 20 nationally in
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  Speaker 1: pass efficiency defense. That's really good. But there is a
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  Speaker 1: very clear and obvious cost to being the only thing
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  Speaker 1: on the team that is working. When your offense stalls
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  Speaker 1: in the red zone, and has to kick a field goal,
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  Speaker 1: your defense goes back out there protecting a margin that's
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  Speaker 1: never more than a possession. When you lose the time
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  Speaker 1: of possession battle by five and a half minutes in
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  Speaker 1: the first half alone, guys are tired in the fourth quarter.
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  Speaker 1: It doesn't excuse the breakdowns, but it certainly explains them.
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  Speaker 1: A defense cannot play hero ball all night, not forever.
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  Speaker 1: And Saturday night forever ran out. Takeaway number two, you
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  Speaker 1: cannot kick your way through this ACC season. Here's a
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: stat that should bother every Clemson fan. Coming into this game,
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  Speaker 1: the most reliable scorer on this team has been the kicker.
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  Speaker 1: Hauser was 15 of 16 on field goals. And I
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: think he's been terrific. No disrespect Nolan's way. But that's
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  Speaker 1: not a very good compliment to the offense. It's an
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  Speaker 1: indictment of it. Clemson has turned eight of its 20
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  Speaker 1: red zone trips into touchdowns coming into tonight. Eight of 20.
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  Speaker 1: This is Clemson we're talking about. Clemson quarterbacks have combined
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  Speaker 1: for two touchdown passes all season and none in the
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  Speaker 1: three games before this one. The passing attack was last
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  Speaker 1: in the ACC in yards per game. So when you
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: watch this offense get into Virginia Tech territory and settle,
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  Speaker 1: you weren't watching something new. You were watching the whole
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  Speaker 1: season in one night. And here's where it ties back
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: to Baton Rouge. After LSU, the conversation was about one
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  Speaker 1: bad night. Wrong quarterback, weather, road crowd, Kiffin's debut, fine.
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  Speaker 1: But Clemson ran it for 40 yards that night. It
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  Speaker 1: could not push the ball down the field. It couldn't finish.
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  Speaker 1: Sound familiar? The quarterback changed, the opponent changed, the stadium changed,
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  Speaker 1: but the problem didn't. Well, certainly this isn't the embarrassment
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: that the LSU loss was to open the year, but
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: you also didn't play the kind of opponent that you
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: played that night to open the year. The problems are
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: still the problems, and that's the part that should worry
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  Speaker 1: you more than the loss itself. Because LLSU, you could
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: kind of explain away. You could kind of say, hey,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it snowballed on us. It happens. This one, you can't.
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  Speaker 1: Takeaway number three, and this one's probably the most important.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to upset any of you because you
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: all think this. I think things have to change. I'll
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: be really clear with what I mean by that. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not saying you fire Dabo. I'm not saying he has
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  Speaker 1: to go. That's not this video. Dabo has earned the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: right to try and fix this. What I'm saying, though,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: is a lot simpler than that. The way that Clemson
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: is doing things right now is not working. And it's
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: funny because Dabo said it himself this week. He said
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: he was talking about the turnover margin. He said if
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: they're going to have a great finish, that's one thing
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  Speaker 1: that has to change. He was talking about one thing.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I think it's bigger than one thing, though. Start with
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  Speaker 1: the QB room. Clemson chose not to go into the
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  Speaker 1: portal for a quarterback this offseason. They believed in what
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: they had, and they rode that belief into a true
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: freshman who wasn't viewed as an elite recruit starting meaningful
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: games in conference in October. And I want to be
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  Speaker 1: fair to Tate. He's 19. He's tough. He's had flashes.
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  Speaker 1: He wasn't ready for this. But he also wasn't the
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  Speaker 1: reason his team lost on Saturday. He shouldn't have been
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: put in a position where he has to be the answer.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: It's not on him. It's on the plan. Look at
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  Speaker 1: the offense as a whole. New coordinator in Chad Morris.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Talented receivers in Wesco and Moore. A good running back
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  Speaker 1: in Davidson. And still, seven games in, nobody can tell
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: you what this offense wants to be when it absolutely
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: has to score. It's not a talent problem to me.
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  Speaker 1: It's an identity problem. And then there's the bigger philosophical question.
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  Speaker 1: the one that this program has been wrestling with for
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  Speaker 1: years now. Clemson built a dynasty doing things a certain way,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: developing high school kids, being patient, trusting the culture over
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the transactional stuff. That has worked. It worked spectacularly in
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the past, but the sport has moved. Look at the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: sidelines Saturday night. James Franklin walked into a 3-9 program,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: brought his quarterback with him, and beat Clemson in year one.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Look at LSU. Kiffin walked into Baton Rouge with a
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: building full of transfers and hung 51 on Clemson his
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: first night. Look at Miami, a transfer quarterback, again, beat
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Clemson handily in Death Valley. Those guys are not smarter
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: than Dabo, per se. They're just playing the game the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: way it's played now. And the uncomfortable truth is that
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Clemson keeps finding out the hard way that the old
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: way doesn't buy you the same margin that it used to.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: You don't have to throw out the culture. The culture
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: is still a strength, but culture without adjustment is literally
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: just nostalgia. So where does that leave the Tigers? Next
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: up is you guys are coming to see me a
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: trip to Tallahassee, Florida FSU. And that game just got
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: a whole lot heavier because the ACC math isn't very
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: pretty to conference losses before November is a hole and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Clemson doesn't control much of anything anymore. Can they still
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: make a run? They're not mathematically eliminated. But the bigger
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: question isn't the standings. It's the response. After LSU, this
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: team answered. It went 4-1 over the next five games
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to put itself back into the race. It says something
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: about this locker room. Now it has to answer again.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Except this time it can't just be with effort. It
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: has to be with something different. different on offense, different
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: when the defense needs a breather, different in how this
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: staff thinks about building a roster going forward. Because Dabo
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: was right seven weeks ago. The best thing about LSU
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: was that it was over. The problem is, Saturday night,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: it came back. There's a lot that has to change
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: for Clemson. And if Dabo won't change it, then you'll
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: eventually get to a place where he has to change too.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Or the coach. Him being there on the sideline with
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: the headset has to change. My point is not a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: fire Dabo video. It's that the way he does things
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: is not working. The defense balled out of their minds tonight,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: came up a little bit short on two drives. The
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: offense absolutely did nothing. I'd love to hear your thoughts
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: down in the comments. I know you're frustrated. I'm frustrated
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: for you. Trust me. You're coming to Tallahassee next week.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: You'll see a whole lot of frustrated people there. I'll
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: be one of them. Let me know if you're going
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: to that game. Appreciate our friends over at PrizePix. All
• 16:51
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• 16:54
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• 16:56
  Speaker 1: you guys next time on ACC Football Addiction.