The Wolfpack Must Take Advantage of Clemson’s Offensive Struggles
RALEIGH NC – The NC State Wolfpack (2-1) will have their hands full this upcoming Saturday hosting #9 Clemson (2-1) at Carter-Finley Stadium. It marks the Pack’s first conference game of the season, and they will have to play their best football up to date if they want to pull off the upset victory.
The bright side entering the matchup is that this is not the dynamic Tigers offense that we are used to seeing over the past during the Dabo Swinney era. The Tigers have put up just 22 points a game and 66 points total, and 49 of those came from a 49-3 victory over a very weak SC State squad. They attempt to work things out at the QB position with Trevor Lawrence’s potential successor DJ Uiagalelei, but the results have been far from the team’s expectations. In three games thus far, he has put up 475 passing yards, 1 touchdown pass, 2 interceptions, which gives him a below-average QBR of 43.6.
The offense failed to score a single point in their season-opener in a 10-3 loss versus #2 Georgia. The Tigers then struggled mightily a week ago in their 14-8 thriller of a win against a Georgia Tech team who had no business being in the game in the first place as massive underdogs. On the other hand, the defense is why the Tigers are still a top 10 team, as they have given up a whopping 14 points in three games and have one of the best defensive fronts in college football. All signs show that this will be a low-scoring affair on Saturday afternoon in this week 4 battle.
The Pack defense has a tremendous opportunity in front of them to give their team a realistic chance of competing with one of the top teams in the nation. In the first three games, they have allowed just 10 points a game against opposing offenses and have done a terrific job in creating turnovers and pressure. However, the pressures that they have racked up have only resulted in 2 total sacks so far. Today, coach Dave Doeren spoke to the media regarding the lack of sacks and is still highly impressed with the defensive production all around.
“Sacks are great, especially sack fumbles. We will take as many of those as we can get. But the bottom line is we are forcing incompletions with interceptions and 3 and outs, and those are good too. If we were not getting sacks and if we were not getting off the field on 3rd down and giving up a lot of points, then I would be worried about it, but that is not what is happening. Quarterbacks are not having success throwing against our defense. From a down and distance standpoint, sacks are great. It keeps them behind the chains, and anytime you can have a backfield bomb go off, it will be times those turn into fumbles for us, so we would love to get a few more of those.”
The defense has been the strength of this team, even with them being short-handed due to injuries. They were fortunate to come out of their 45-7 win versus Furman healthy and hope to continue that trend moving forward. The Wolfpack opens up as 10 point underdogs at home, and even though this Clemson team has struggled on offense, it will be a difficult task to outplay them for 4 quarters. Still, they must take advantage of the very few weaknesses they have and capitalize.