How a Lawrence mistake turned into confidence-building moment for Clemson defense
Brent Venables doesn’t need a safety.
The Clemson defensive coordinator has four capable players in his back-end rotation, but if the No. 1 Tigers ever get in a bind at that position this season, Trevor Lawrence showed he could help during Thursday’s 52-14 win over Georgia Tech.
After the Clemson quarterback threw a second-quarter pass that was picked off at the Tiger 43-yard line by cornerback Tre Swilling, who made a great read and route jump, Lawrence ran down the ball carrier and laid into him with a big hit that knocked Swilling out of bounds at the 2-yard line.
Lawrence said he knew as soon as he let it go that the ball was going to be going the other way. Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney called it a pre-snap read error by Lawrence right after the game.
He also praised his QB for showing “heart of a champion” for his touchdown-saving tackle.
“That’s the kind of play that sets the tone for everything we do,” Swinney said.
Typically, you might not want to see your star quarterback risking injury making tackles, and no, Venables won’t ever be trying Lawrence out at safety. But the sophomore signal caller earned a lot of respect from his teammates and coaches.
“That guy can do anything,” Venables said. “What a great play by him and what an example as a leader to never give up and play the down. That’s what a champion does, plays every play to a standard.”
As it turned out, his rundown of Swilling actually led to a key moment in the maturation of a young Clemson defense that replaced six of hits front-seven starters from last year’s national championship squad.
Needing just two yards to get on the scoreboard, Georgia Tech ran quarterback Tobias Oliver on a swinging-gate play right into the Clemson defense for a 1-yard gain on first down. Oliver went nowhere on a sneak up the middle on second down. After Georgia Tech burned a timeout to draw up a third-down play, a handoff to Jordan Mason came up short of the end zone.
Head coach Geoff Collins elected to go for it on fourth down, when Oliver rolled out to his right and threw a pass into the end zone. However, linebacker James Skalski got a paw on the ball and safety Denzel Johnson intercepted the tipped pass to complete a memorable goal-line stand.
“Regardless of who you’re playing at any level of football, you get four downs at the 2-yard line and you get a stop, a turnover, that’s big time,” Venables said. “You grow from that and you learn from that. You build confidence and you develop an identity.”
Venables was proud and impressed that his unit was able to keep an offense from scoring that’s filled with productive rushers left over from the Paul Johnson triple-option era.
The Tigers pitched a shutout in first half and hope that kind of stand in the second quarter turns out to be a sign of things to come for the defense.
“Obviously I don’t like throwing interceptions, but it was good to be able to make a tackle and get a good hit on him,” Lawrence said. “It was cool to see our defense come out and hold them right there on the 2-yard line.”
NEXT
Who: Texas A&M at Clemson
When: 3:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Memorial Stadium, Clemson, SC
TV: ABC