College Football Rankings 2014: Clemson Scores 73 Points

The Clemson Tigers should expect a big boost in their spot in the college football rankings next week. On Saturday, they showed the football world that they weren’t ready to accept failure after their brutal Week One loss to the Georgia Bulldogs. At home this week, they took care of business against an average South Carolina State team. 73 points? Easy work for the Tigers’ offense.

Here’s a bit of a breakdown:

• Clemson scored 34 points in the first half, 39 in the second. There wasn’t one big quarter, it was simply total domination.
• South Carolina State managed 44 total yards the entire game. Clemson? 735.
• The Tigers held their opponent to 0.3 yards per rush. This is not a typo.

From a player statistics point of view, the Tigers stayed fairly balanced. Cole Stoudt had a nice 300+ yard game, tossing 22 completions and a touchdown. Backup quarterback Deshaun Watson went 8 for 9, throwing three touchdown passes.

The Tigers ran all over the Bulldogs, totaling 268 yards and four touchdowns. Four different rushers (Choice, Howard, Davidson, Humphries) scored in the rout, proving just about anyone could do anything against their anything but competitive opponent.

Wide receiver Artavis Scott scored two touchdowns on the day, racking up 164 yards over six grabs. He and Mike Williams (4/83/0) led the team in receiving on the afternoon.

The defense didn’t have to have a good game, but they managed to almost out-perform the offense. They held the Bulldogs to just two third-down conversions (in 15 tries) all day, and gave up just seven yards rushing. Jadar Johnson had a pick-six that, at the time, put the Tigers up by 58 points.

The 4th quarter scores were a little bit of “salt in the wound” type of points, but the Tigers did what they needed to do to survive and move on.

Next week, they’ll have off before facing the Florida State Seminoles on the 20th.