Thumbs up, thumbs down: Clemson vs. Florida State

Thumbs up

Trevor Lawrence

The freshman quarterback set a career high with 314 passing yards and tied a career high with four touchdowns. Lawrence also broke Deshaun Watson’s records for passing touchdowns and yards by a true freshman. He now has 16 passing touchdowns and 1,490 passing yards this season.

Amari Rodgers

Christian Wilkins

The defensive tackle got a chance to play running back and scored on a 1-yard touchdown run out of the jumbo package in the second quarter. Wilkins was also a big part of a defense that held FSU to -21 rushing yards.

Clemson has plenty of talent on its defensive line but Foster, a backup, led the way on Saturday. The sophomore had five tackles and 2.5 tackles for loss against the Seminoles.

Thumbs down

FSU’s offensive line

The Seminoles gave up 14 tackles for loss and quarterbacks Deondre Francois and Justin Blackman took several hits. Francois left the game in the second half after being drilled.

The environment

The fans arrived late and left early. It is hard to blame them with the way the game unfolded, but the environment was never loud, and the crowd was never into it, even when it was a scoreless game after the first quarter.

FSU’s discipline

The Seminoles committed 16 penalties for 134 yards, were jawing throughout the game and had two players ejected for throwing punches. FSU coach Willie Taggart said of the actions “That’s unacceptable. That’s mentally weak. That’s what losers do. That can’t happen.”

Punting

Clemson punter Will Spiers had a 14-yard punt, while FSU’s Logan Tyler had an 18-yard punt.

This story was originally published October 28, 2018 at 7:45 AM.