Wake Forest goes to Clemson this week and the Demon Deacons need a reclamation game. Getting it at Clemson is a whole other issue. The Tigers did what they were supposed to do last week. They regrouped after a loss and took out an over-inflated Syracuse team. Wake spent the week rehashing everything that went wrong in the home loss to GA Tech. The films were ugly.
Numbers From the Bye Week
Even in the three wins this season, life has not been easy for the Wake Forest offense. Breaking in a first-year starting quarterback has been bumpy. Mitch Griffis has officially been sacked a staggering 18 times already this season, including eight times in the loss to GA Tech. It’s easy to put the blame on a quarterback. They get too much credit when it is good, and too much blame when it goes bad. And in fact, some of this is on Griffis. He is holding on to the ball too long, too frequently. But head coach Dave Clawson says tapes don’t lie. There is a slew of missed blocks up front, by the receivers, and by the running backs. Want to know why the offense is not as smooth as it should be? The blame goes on everyone.
“One of the biggest problems we have on offense right now is we have too many negative yardage plays,” Clawson said at his weekly media gathering earlier this week. He has the stats to back it up. He says there have been 21 sacks. According to Clawson, the offensive line has been responsible for nine sacks. The running backs have given up five with missed blocking assignments. The tight ends have given up two. The rest are on the quarterback holding the ball too long.
The bye week was clearly spent eyeballing every mistake over the first four games. Clawson went line by line on dropped tight end and receiver passes, dropped punt receptions, and quarterback errors on throws.
Rehashing 2022
Part of getting ready for this game was reviewing last year’s double-overtime loss to Clemson in Winston-Salem. It was heartbreaking or thrilling depending upon which team colors you wear.
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney has also gone back and looked at the game again. “It’s just painful to watch the tape from last year,” he said at his weekly press conference. And that is from the coach who won the game. “It was, by far, our worst game on defense.”
We asked Clawson about his take after going back and reviewing the game, particularly in light of Swinney’s comments. “If he’s in pain, my pain should be worse because they won the game,” he answered. “There’s certain games in your career you never ever get over. And that’s one of them. When I’m on my deathbed that game will still bother me.”
The two schools have met 88 previous times with Clemson holding a decided 70-17-1 advantage, including the last 14 years in a row. That’s not to say there has not been recent consternation around the program. The Tigers are 3-2 overall, but 1-2 in ACC play. They got their first conference win at Syracuse last week after dropping games at Duke and at home against Florida State.
Rejuvenated Clemson
Quarterback Cade Klubnik has had a bit of a roller coaster ride in his first year as the starter. But he has found his footing of late, having gone three-and-a-half games without an interception. Part of smoothing out the bumps has been the emergence of freshman receiver Tyler Brown. He has been getting the first-team snaps in the absence of Antonio Williams, (ankle injury). Swinney was heavily criticized for his lack of transfer portal use to shore up depth at the skill positions. Brown, with his 153 yards on nine catches against Syracuse, has made that a moot point.
Clawson has never had questions about the talent level at Clemson. “There’s not one guy on their roster that wanted to come to Wake Forest. We wanted all those guys.” Clawson said there were recruits he thought he landed, but, “The second Clemson offered them, they didn’t even give us a kiss goodbye. They just left.” For the record, Clemson comes into the game with the ninth-best total defense numbers in the country. The Tigers have the 21st-ranked offense in the country.
Swinney showed respectful deference to Wake Forest as well. He called Clawson a great evaluator of talent. He was complimentary of Wake’s edge rusher Jasheen Davis and called the secondary unit one of the “best coached” in the conference. And he repeatedly referred to Griffis as, “Gritty.”
Gritty isn’t going to get it done if Wake cannot cut down on the mental errors during the game. “We’re getting behind the sticks too much because of the negative yardage plays,” Clawson said. “A lot of those are because of missed assignments up front. And that has to get cleaned up.” He added that he still has faith in Griffis despite the bumps through the first four weeks. He told the media that no one was more bothered by the loss than Griffis because of his competitive nature that Clawson compared to past Wake Forest quarterbacks. “He’s got to play better, and we’ve got to help him. We have to play better around him.”
Help Is on the Way
There is some help coming up front. Clawson said lineman Spencer Clapp has been practicing at full speed the last few days. Clapp played in the GA Tech game, but Clawson labeled it as unfair to the sixth-year player, describing him as only being “about 60%” healthy.
Starting linebacker Chase Jones still has not cleared concussion protocols and will be out Saturday. He has yet to play this season.
