Forgive me for being late to the party, as this is the first time I have been back here. (With the exception of some BB threads.) So, not knowing all that has been said, written, analyzed and all that stuff, here is my convoluted take on the 2 plays that made a difference. (This will be in blue font, for those of you who do not see blue.
The 2 plays were the 2 3rd down conversions that we made. That put us at 2-15. Had we not made them, and went 0-15, there is not one person here that would have said "Yeah...............ok, we still got this. We can hold them. The D has it. So what if Clemson runs over 100 plays.? We got the D. We can still win this."
OK..............not in blue, now.
How many times has CNS said the worst thing that can happen is that a team plays poorly and still wins? How can you get players to understand how important execution is, if they don't execute, yet still win? How do you get them to buy into what you are trying to get them to do?
Maybe the lesson is now learned.
There have only been 2 games where I have immediately turned everything off, and did not listen to CNS, post-game. One was the Disaster in the Pasture, and the other one was..................well, should be obvious.
Both had the same problem: could not convert critical 3rd downs. This time was worse, as we could not convert ANY, after the 2nd(?) set of downs.
On a side note.........................can anyone here remember a game where we did not make adjustments, coming out of halftime? Seems to me that we didn't. But, could be mistaken, and blinded by my dislike of a former coach/player that now wears orange.