Auburn’s defense also gave the offense a chance to make those last few game-winning attempts.
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The Clemson Tigers take on the Auburn Tigers in one of the biggest games in college football on Saturday, September 3, 2016 start time at 9:00 PM ET, at Jordan-Hare Stadium. As a favorite, which is what the Tigers will be tonight, they were just 6-7 at the betting window and as a road team, they were 2-3 against the number but still won by an average margin of 18.2 points per contest.
That, and a 14-yard strike to Williams, set up Clemson’s first TD on Wayne Gallman’s 1-yard run. “We felt like as good as we had played defensively, with them having no timeouts, it was going to be very hard for them to go score”. “We don’t ever see him drop a ball”, Swinney said.
For starters, wide receiver Mike Williams looked absolutely sensational in his return to action following a season-ending neck injury a year ago. Gallman carried 30 times for 123 yards. Perhaps most impressive, Auburn was able to hold an extremely explosive Clemson offense to just 19 points.
Renfrow caught a touchdown for a third straight game for the Tigers. “Holding those guys to 19 points I thought was really unbelievable”. According to 247Sports.com, Hicks is 12th-best weak-side defensive end in the 2018 class and with his decommitment, 4-star quarterback Joey Gatewood is the only verbal pledge to Auburn’s 2018 recruiting class.
Clemson led 19-6 with 9:59 remaining after wide receiver Hunter Renfrow’s sensational leaping grab at the back corner of the end zone – though kicker Greg Huegel, who missed five extra points in 2015, clanked his point-after attempt off the left upright, a situation that almost came back to bite Clemson. He made some solid throws of varying length, but he did throw an interception at the goal line to Ben Boulware with a little more than six remaining in the game.
White did lead Auburn down the field late, but a pair of Hail Mary attempts were knocked down by Clemson safety Jadar Johnson – the last of which sealed the win for Clemson.
Auburn limited Clemson to 166 yards in the second half, and 399 in the game.
Watson got off to a quick start, throwing a 20-yard pass to pick up Clemson’s initial first down of the game.
Malzahn is widely considered an offensive genius – he was the offensive coordinator for the 2010 National Championship team and took a team led by converted cornerback Nick Marshall to the National Championship game – but Saturday night, that genius backfired. The defense held, and in Clemson’s first offensive series, Williams made a lovely catch, with Wayne Gallman making a great blitz pickup block.
Carlson’s 53-yard field goal – the sixth of his career from 50 yards or more – with 12:58 left in the first half appeared to wake up Clemson’s offense, which had struggled to muster any consistency to that point.
Possibly barring a dominating win by No. 4 Florida State over No. 11 Mississippi Monday night, Clemson seems likely to stay put right behind Alabama. Well, they proved it in beating the No. 3 ranked Oklahoma Sooners. White split time with Jeremy Johnson – the third quarterback contender – last season and threw for 1,166 yards with just one touchdown and four interceptions.
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Asked if the Tigers will play three quarterbacks after what happened on Saturday night, Malzahn said, “We may continue to do that. We’ll have to see how each game goes”. The Clemson Tigers will come home to host Troy and South Carolina State in their next two games. Clemson may be frustrated after a unusual game, but it survived to get the victory, and in Week 1 in a hostile environment, sometimes survival is all that matters.
