S.C. State not thrilled about having Clemson’s full attention
There’s some unhappiness at Clemson with the way the Tigers’ offense has performed this season. You can add South Carolina State coach Buddy Pough to the list of people not thrilled with the way Clemson enters Saturday’s game.
S.C. State’s no stranger to playing at Clemson. This will be the third meeting between the two schools since 2013.
Clemson won the previous two meetings by scores of 52-13 and 73-7, and Pough knows playing a Tigers squad coming off a lackluster performance against Troy might not be good for his Bulldogs.
“We know enough about Clemson to understand that they’ve probably not played as well as they can play. It’ll be interesting to see how they react to us,” he said. “I think this may give them a little different sense of urgency. I really do get the feel that they’ll try to really get after us. We’re going to try to do the same to them, but at the same time their get-after-it might be a little bit different than our get-after-it.”
Clemson was expected to have one of the top offenses in the country, but through two games Heisman candidate Deshaun Watson has been out of sync with his receivers and the running game has struggled.
The Tigers rank 69th in the country in total offense, averaging 406.5 yards per game. Clemson ended the 2015 season with 11 games in a row of at least 500 yards of offense.
The Clemson offense returned almost all of its key pieces and on paper is one of the best in the country.
“They’ve got the ability to really come out and knock us crazy if they really decide to be that way,” Pough said. “We want them to just kind of come out and just kind of go on through the motions and get on out of there, which would probably be the best case scenario for us.”
Pough said playing a high-profile team ranked in the top 5 in the country is a good opportunity for his players to showcase their abilities.
S.C. State alum Javon Hargrave plays for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was drafted in the third round of the 2016 draft thanks, in part, to his impressive performance at Clemson two years ago.
“We say a bunch that the reason Javon Hargrave is where he is now is because what happened with him the time that he was there. He played really well against the Clemson guys and the Clemson guys said that,” Pough said. “They said that he was one of the better players that they had played against. In situations like that it gives you a chance to legitimize yourself.”
Saturday’s game is the third in a row for the Bulldogs against an FBS opponent after playing at UCF and Louisiana Tech. S.C. State dropped its opener 38-0 before falling 53-24 to the Bulldogs last week.
“We’re on to the next part of this three-week schedule from you-know-where,” Pough joked.
The game at Louisiana Tech was particularly rough because of a four-hour weather delay that kept the game from starting until about 11 p.m.
The game ended around 2 a.m. and after loading up, S.C. State had a nearly 12-hour bus ride home.
Pough said he believes the adversity and tough competition will pay off when MEAC play begins next week.
“What I’m hoping is that the sense of urgency that this part of the schedule has created for us will benefit us in ways that we can draw on for the rest of the season,” he said.
This story was originally published September 13, 2016 at 9:17 PM with the headline "S.C. State not thrilled about having Clemson’s full attention."