Nov 4 | Clemson

Crazy Balki

Crazy Balki

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Valpodoc85 said:
IMHO this comes down to our O line and their DL. The W goes thru the uglies up front
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This is why I think ND wins.

It comes down to the battle up front, both ways. ND's OL vs. Clemson's DL and Clemson's OL vs. ND's DL.

Clemson hasn't faced a team as strong as ND is up front on both sides. That includes FSU. FSU has a good DL, not as good as ND's, but their OL leaves much to be desired. Travis has made up for a lot of their issues, but against Clemson, he was fighting through an injury suffered the week prior against BC. That severely crippled FSU's offensive capabilities, since the offense centers around Travis.

ND's OL has faced fronts as good as Clemson's in the past with matchups against Ohio State and Duke on the docket. Clemson has not.
 
tecateparty

tecateparty

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As a South Carolinian, this is my Super Bowl. If we don't win all of my Clemson buds are going to start chirping again
 
1rishftw

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NDohio said:
Couple of things concern me about this game:

Dabo is angry. He tends to do well when he is angry.

Revenge factor from last year's game. Clemson is 7-7 since ND took it to them. They are going to want redemption.

They do still have a very good defense.

On the other hand:

Klubnik has been a bit of a mess

No Shipley (most likely)

Their WR group may be worse than ND's group

If we can score early on them and take the lead that crowd is gonna get ugly. I think Clemson quits if they get down by 10+.

The best unit on the field, by far, will be the ND defense. Defense travels well.
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He shook people off of the bandwagon! He should be ecstatic!
 
Wild Bill

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I guess Clemson could be undefeated if they didn't fumble. Maybe it's bad luck, maybe not. The thing I noticed about them is that they play like pussies. ND really beat the shit out of them last year and they just don't play with any edge at all. I think that's the bigger factor for them, especially in this game. They'll need to do more than just hold onto the football to beat ND.
 
NDohio

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Crazy Balki said:
This is why I think ND wins.

It comes down to the battle up front, both ways. ND's OL vs. Clemson's DL and Clemson's OL vs. ND's DL.

Clemson hasn't faced a team as strong as ND is up front on both sides. That includes FSU. FSU has a good DL, not as good as ND's, but their OL leaves much to be desired. Travis has made up for a lot of their issues, but against Clemson, he was fighting through an injury suffered the week prior against BC. That severely crippled FSU's offensive capabilities, since the offense centers around Travis.

ND's OL has faced fronts as good as Clemson's in the past with matchups against Ohio State and Duke on the docket. Clemson has not.
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Right, and the disparity in those four groups is pretty big. The difference between the ND O-Line and the Clemson D-Line is minimal. The difference between the ND D-Line and the Clemson O-Line is massive.
 
Veritate Duce Progredi

Veritate Duce Progredi

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Clemson can choose to crash the run and I'm guessing they will. ND has to have a potent passing attack in this game to win.

The offense can find ways to keep Clemson off balance but we dont' see a lot of motion/eye-candy from Parker so he needs to break his tendencies. I honestly think the first 4-5 plays should be scripted passes just to pull those LBs back from the LOS.

And for the love of all things Irish, can we please line up in a heavy formation and run a seam or corner route to the TEs? Is it really that hard to start using that formation for passes to make teams second guess where they should commit their #s?
 
BoredIrish

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If Thomas isnt healthy... bet the under.

ND's receivers couldn't get separation with Evans demanding a double team and Clemson has talented players on D. I suspect this game will come down to which QB turns it over more.
 
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Offensively - Can't turn it over obviously, need to not be so obvious with our play calls. It was terrible first half vs pitt but improved a lot second half. Also, how healthy are our WRs, if we're rolling thomas and greathouse out there at 75% i don't think that's good, hopefully they're better. I expect staes to have a good game.

Defensively - Can we stop their run with our front 6? We gave up one bad run vs OSU, we struggled second half vs duke, and we missed a lot of tackles vs Louisville. Clemson is going to want to run the ball, and we should be able to stop it with our front 6. Clemson offense is very similar to Duke when leonard was healthy. The goal isn't to run Kade a ton, but he will, and he's athletic. He's an ok thrower of the ball if you give him easy decision. We shut that down until duke made some great second half adjustments and golden didn't have a good answer. Also, are BenMo and Hart really 100% and ready to dominate, or are they on the depth chart because they'll play some but not 100%.

I'm not expecting us to have a huge turnover advantage, but if the D does it's thing and the offense can actually be good the first half, I think we'll pull away. If we come out offensively first half like we have vs osu, duke, louisville, pitt, we'll have ourselves a tight game.
 
Kingbish01

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I have 4 tickets level U Section TDM, let me know if anyone is looking for tickets. The time change created an issue for me, and can't go now.
 
ulukinatme

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So what's the latest on Jayden Thomas? Is he still banged up from before and may or may not be able to go, or was this a new injury? I didn't see anything in his thread, no updates since Sept.
 
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I don't know the status of Will Shipley. He took a huge hit on Saturday and is in concussion protocol. My guess is he's very doubtful to play. Phil Mafah is the 2nd back and Clemson's version of Estime (6' 1" 230). He has 439 yards rushing on 73 carries for the year. No one after that has gotten many carries. He was 4 star, 180th rank player in the country, 11th ranked running back per 247 from Georgia (2021) (Estime was 244 nationally that same year)

ND has done a great job controlling the run. If Will Shipley doesn't play, that's a BIG advantage swing to ND. It makes Clemson rely even more on its passing game....which has been hugely problematic for them.
 
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ulukinatme said:
So what's the latest on Jayden Thomas? Is he still banged up from before and may or may not be able to go, or was this a new injury? I didn't see anything in his thread, no updates since Sept.
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He made a nice play or two vs Pitt, then for some reason we thought end of 3rd or early fourth it was a good idea to take a deep shot with him, looked like he pulled up a little gimpy on it. My guess is he keeps trying to give it a go once it feels good, but the hammy hasn't built up the strength/endurance needed so it keeps on giving out a little on him.

Speaking from experience as someone whose hammy ended their playing career after trying to rush it back to fast TWICE. Coaches pushed me to get back fast and I would be great in a condensed portion of practice, go through warmups before the game feeling good, start out good, then at some point it would give out again. It wasn't until the off season where i shut it down that if fully healed and allowed me to build back up the strength/endurance properly.
 
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Green Mountains said:
I don't know the status of Will Shipley. He took a huge hit on Saturday and is in concussion protocol. My guess is he's very doubtful to play. Phil Mafah is the 2nd back and Clemson's version of Estime (6' 1" 230). He has 439 yards rushing on 73 carries for the year. No one after that has gotten many carries. He was 4 star, 180th rank player in the country, 11th ranked running back per 247 from Georgia (2021) (Estime was 244 nationally that same year)

ND has done a great job controlling the run. If Will Shipley doesn't play, that's a BIG advantage swing to ND. It makes Clemson rely even more on its passing game....which has been hugely problematic for them.
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They won't slow down the run with Mafah. He's just different than shipley. less outside, less pass game that they can do with shipley. Mafah is a big tough runner, doesn't have estimes feet, hands, or top end speed though. Clemson also doesn't have a complimentary back to him they trust if shipley is out.
 
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