“Junior wide receiver Mike Williams, at 6’4”, 220 pounds, could be the next great Clemson wideout.
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Auburn: hosts Arkansas State, where Malzahn was head coach in 2012, on Saturday.
“I’m very proud of the defense”, Malzahn said after the game, per Charles Goldberg of AuburnTigers.com. Where must we look?
Today’s Clemson Tigers vs Auburn Tigers college football game has a start time schedule of 9:00pm eastern time and airs on TV channel ESPN.
Auburn cut the lead to 19-13 with 3:22 remaining on a Kerryon Johnson 9-yard touchdown run. Clemson, which scored 37.5 points per game previous year, returns seven all-conference offensive players, and that’s not even including WR Hunter Renfrow, who had 88 yards and two scores in the national championship. White had receivers in the area on both occasions but Clemson’s defense did a nice job of batting the ball down to seal the win.
White went 10-for-21 for 140 yards while throwing an interception at the Clemson 1-yard line.
Swinney nearly had to do just that. 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.
Both teams can certainly take positives out of the game, as Auburn’s defense showed plenty of fight, while Clemson welcomed back star wide receiver Mike Williams, who missed almost all of last season with a neck injury. “Their quarterback is one of the best players in college football, if not the best player”, Malzahn said.
I am absolutely flummoxed about this team right now.
Behind Wayne Gallman and Deshaun Watson, Clemson drove 60 yards in 10 plays to take 2:42 off the clock, allowing Auburn only 40 seconds to drive 83 yards.
White and Johnson each led Auburn to touchdown drives, but each threw a costly interception deep in Clemson territory.
It didn’t work with three quarterbacks trying it in Auburn’s 19-13 loss to second-ranked Clemson on Saturday. Coach Dabo Swinney went for it on fourth and 4 instead of attempting a 34-yard field goal. Gallman ran behind a pair of big blockers – defensive linemen Christian Wilkins and Dexter Lawrence – to score on the fourth-and-one play with 7:45 left in the half. The Tigers offense didn’t appear to have the talent to keep up with Watson and the Clemson offense, and the defense wasn’t expected to do too much to help.
It worked better, but not well, with two of the same quarterbacks trying it previous year, and it doesn’t look like it will work without the running backs that could have been Tigers this season. He connected with Williams on passes of 11 and 26 yards before picking up a first down on a scramble after the defender almost knocked the ball free. The first came when the person signaling in the play couldn’t hear the call, and the second happened when one player in the huddle didn’t know the play. We may continue to do that. Gallman was stopped short of the line, giving Auburn one more possession.
After a 6-6 season in a year with championship expectations and all of the other blunders on his Auburn record, we have seen enough.
Those former follies helped contribute to a conservative approach late in Saturday’s 19-13 win that nearly cost his team in the frantic waning minutes. Despite all the different carries, those two combined for more than 1,900 yards and 16 touchdowns.
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Watson will take the same approach this week as he has all off season – largely steering clear of the Heisman hype, his National Football League future and the offensive show many expect ever time the Tigers line up. Auburn PK Daniel Carlson has made 98 consecutive PATs, the fourth-longest streak in program history.
