Clemson imposed their will to the point that they held the Sooners without a point in the third and fourth quarters, while notching 21 points of its own. Had Oklahoma stopped the attempt – or Clemson just punted – the Sooners would’ve come up with a huge stop and halted some Tiger momentum.
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For the second year in a row, the Sooners (11-2) ended their season with a loss to Clemson.
The Tigers found a new way to dominate the Sooners after embarrassing them past year. “It’s the will. They had that edge and a will about them in the second half”. Clemson’s defense took the Sooners’ jabs, but it was that same group that delivered the knockout punch on Baker Mayfield and the Sooners. On one run, Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson kept churning for an additional 5 yards while dragging along 291-pound tackle Matthew Romar, who had a handful of the quarterback’s jersey.
On Thursday, against a much better Oklahoma team, Clemson lined up and ran the ball down Oklahoma’s throat, despite the fact that its entire offensive line is different from past year. Sooners safety Steven Parker undercut the route – going for an interception – but his gamble failed.
“They played the more physical way than we did”. “We were outplayed badly in the second half”. Since then they had averaged 52 points a game. “That hurt us the most”. “But we weren’t tonight”.
As he stood in the middle of a jubilant Clemson locker room following the Tiger’s win in the Orange Bowl Thursday night, Dabo Swinney wasn’t ready to start thinking about his team’s next challenge.
It was scoreless in the second quarter when Alabama’s Jake Coker throws downfield to Calvin Ridley, a 50 yard pass to the one yard line. “I didn’t feel like they just pushed us around or anything”.
So the College Football Playoff National Championship Game is set, with Clemson (14-0) taking on Alabama (13-1) at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on January 11.
Stoops said Clemson’s pass rush made Mayfield’s job hard.
“He gives the credit to the people around him, he gives it to the line, the beard gang”, Singleton said. Time and time again during the Tigers’ undefeated run, Watson delivered a precision downfield pass or the flawless improvised scramble to wear down a defense.
There’s another story line to the title game.
Scoring two plays later, the Sooners appeared to be in control of the game while the defense took the field forcing the Tigers to punt the ball away after six plays.
While the celebration wasn’t a culmination since there is still one game to go, it represented validation of Swinney’s tenure at Clemson. “We were late getting to the guy down the boundary – it was our lack of execution”. The Mountaineers – wrongly – tried to remind everybody that the last time Clemson was in the Orange Bowl it didn’t work out.
And while the final score makes it seem like the game was lopsided, the first half was tightly contested.
-Quarterback Deshaun Watson needs 113 yards rushing in the Orange Bowl to become just the third player in FBS history with at least 3,500 yards passing and 1,000 yards rushing in the same season. Derrick Henry scored two touchdowns but rushed for just 75 yards.
“Most everybody on the team is coming back, so this is the beginning of next year”, senior linebacker Frank Shannon said.
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The last team to go 14-0 was Florida State, which brought a national title back to the ACC in 2013.
