re: How far does Clemson fall?

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You’re totally disregarding wins. You’re telling me most of those teams have a better resume than Clemson? A Clemson team that lost by 3 without their starting QB and kicker?

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I think the polls and the playoff committee will take the injury of Bryant into consideration with the lost...but come on. That was a game Clemson should have won regardless if Bryant played or not. Its not like Clemson has a couple of walk-on's at the QB position.

Clemson lost because of three reasons: 1) They abandoned the run game several times through out the game. Looking at the stats, Clemson ran the ball 25 times for 113 yards. Etienne had only 5 carries and Feaster had only 7 carries. Most importantly, they stop running the ball when it was obvious Bryant was hurt and couldn't move out of the pocket. 2) The defense showed weakness for the first time this season. Syracuse did something that Auburn and Louisville couldn't do and that is spread Clemson's defense out all around the field. Their secondary couldn't keep up at times and the LB's couldn't get to the outside in time. Their defense looked lost at times and when Syracuse was allowed to run their pace, Clemson's defense was getting gassed. 3) The third reason why Clemson lost was game management. Several times in that game, you could scratch your head trying to figure out what in the hell was Dabo thinking. The first head scratching moment was..why would you keep Bryant in the game if he was injured and was showing no signs of being effective? There is no doubt that keeping him like he did was the biggest reason why Bryant got that concussion. The second head scratching moment was (tied to the first point) is abandoning the run game. Like I said, 23 carries is very low for an offense that was averaging over 200+ yards per game and a backfield that is very good and deep. The third head scratching moment is special teams. Yeah Clemson's kicker is out for the season and the backup sucks but Dabo didn't try to do anything to avoid kicking a FG ...such as trying to draw an offsides or going for it on 4th down. Also, that fake punt in the 4th was a disaster. I know that play is a designed play in which if there is something there then go for it but late in the game trailing, it was too much risk to ask your punter to make a decision like that. Clemson's defense was struggling and was tired but I still would have given them a chance to try to stop Syracuse deep and force a punt to create a short field. All in all, Syracuse played better in all three areas than Clemson Friday night. Clemson losing because of an injury should not be an excuse because the fact Clemson's roster is full of elite talent and has some of the best coaches in the country right now. That is my observation....I'm not saying I'm right but that is what I observed.

With several teams in the top 10 losing yesterday, Clemson prob. won't drop too far. Maybe around 7 to 9. I still think Clemson is one of the best teams in the country but I still think this lost to Syracuse is still a bad one. Clemson had a great resume during the first month of the season but those wins are not looking as great as they did a couple of weeks ago. Auburn now has two losses and them losing to LSU yesterday raises a lot of questions about them. Louisville lost to BC yesterday and their best win to this date is Purdue. VT is sitting nicely at 5-1 but their resume is not the greatest. Biggest win is over a WVU and that is a team that only has one quality win. I will agree that Clemson's wins still looks a little better than some of the current one lost teams but not as nearly as impressive as it once was. Clemson still has a good chance to winning out but as of right now, they only have one team left on the schedule that is NC State. You could consider two if Miami or VT makes it the ACC championship game. Look at some of the other one lost teams....Ohio State still has potentially two or three big games left, OU still has two or three big game left, same goes for Washington and a couple of other team possibly. Even if Clemson does win out, I think it is still a possiblilty of them getting jumped especially if there is another one lost team that impresses and finished the season strong with big wins.