No. 15 Clemson at Florida State: 5 Things to Watch For

CLEMSON – Clemson will take its show on the road this weekend as the No. 14 Tigers travel to Tallahassee to take on a reeling Florida State team.

While the Seminoles were able to come into Clemson and knock off the Tigers a season ago, Dabo Swinney’s team has won seven of the past eight and three straight at Doak Campbell Stadium.

5 Things to Watch For

– Two Teams Headed in Opposite Directions: Clemson comes in having won three straight, with all three of those being blowout wins. After an absolute dud of a showing in the season-opener against Georgia, Garrett Riley’s offense has finally started to click, led by Cade Klubnik who is playing the best ball of his career. The junior is completing 66.4% of his passes and has accounted for 16 total touchdowns in the past three games.

After beginning the season ranked inside of the Top 10, the Seminoles are off to a 1-4 start, including a home loss to G5 program Memphis. Most recently, Mike Norvell’s team was absolutely thumped at SMU 42-16. There is no denying, the Seminoles are reeling, and in a bad way. Is there anything Norvell can do to stop the bleeding?

– Jump On the ‘Noles Early : Throughout the offseason, the pundits were calling the Florida State defensive line elite and one of the best in the country. It hasn’t played out that way. This Seminoles’ run defense has been downright bad. Florida State comes in allowing 165.8 rushing yards per game. Teams are converting 47% of their third downs against them. It is worth noting that they do have 16 sacks through the first five games.

However, it is the offense that has been downright dismal. The Seminoles are only averaging 278 yards of total offense per game. They just can’t run the ball (65.2 YPG). They have only been inside the red zone 10 times total (5 TDs) and are converting just 29.85% of their third downs. If the Tigers can jump out to an early lead early, this game could get ugly quick. Book reading ugly.

– No DJU vs Clemson Matchup: All offseason, many fans had been clamoring to see DJ Uiagalelei face off against his former team. After suffering a broken finger on his throwing hand in the loss to SMU, Uiagalelei is expected to miss multiple games. Norvell revealed after the game that he was about to pull Uiagalelei anyways, seeing how the quarterback had just thrown his third interception of the contest, that final one resulting in a pick six. So far, Uiagalelei has thrown more interceptions (6) than touchdown passes (4).

Brock Glenn is set to get the start. The redshirt freshman came on in relief of Uiagalelei last week and went 0-for-4 passing. He also started the ACC Championship Game and the Orange Bowl last season after Jordan Travis was injured. Last year he would appear in a total of five games, completing just 37.3% of his passes with no touchdowns and two interceptions.

– Clemson DL vs FSU OL: The Seminoles pass protection has been downright bad so far this season. Before his injury, Uiagalelei had faced more pressure than any power conference QB in the country and by a pretty wide margin. Uiagalelei was facing pressure on 47.8% on his drop-back attempts.

While the Tigers haven’t been racking up the sacks this season, they did register four in last week’s win over Stanford, giving the defense eight on the season. While those aren’t eye-popping numbers by any stretch, the Tigers starting defensive line has been fairly disruptive at times, especially when fully healthy. And it looks like there is a decent shot of Peter Woods returning this week.

– Setting the Edge : Despite the blowout win over Stanford, Clemson had issues getting the edge set against the Cardinal, particularly in the first half. Stanford gashed the defense for 168 rushing yards over the first two quarters, with a majority of those coming on outside runs. Far too often the ends were getting sucked in and covered up in that first half. The Tigers were much better after halftime, though. At least until the coaches started getting all the reserves onto the field in the fourth quarter. That needs to be cleaned up because Florida State will almost certainly try and take advantage of that, despite the fact that they’ve not had much success running the ball.

A limited number of signed replica road signs from Cade Klubnik are available!  Visit Clemson Variety & Frame or purchase online!