Clemson Football: 3 takeaways from season-opening win over Wake Forest
By Andrew Tineo
In hopes of making it back to the national championship, Clemson football began its 2020 season on the road against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.
The undisputed winner of the ACC over the past five seasons has been the Clemson Tigers. In a season with all sorts of chaos and uncertainty, it was the team captain of the Tigers in quarterback Trevor Lawrence that was the vocal leader of college football continuing in the fall.
For Wake Forest, there were questions coming into the season on where their main production of offense would come from. Although, one player did break out, it was not nearly enough to hang around with the five-time defending ACC champions.
Trevor Lawrence had three total touchdowns and Clemson’s first team defense held Wake Forest to three points and the total defense held Wake Forest to just over 300 yards on 61 plays, in route to a 37-13 win in Week 2 in Winston-Salem.
Wake Forest offense sputtered and could never gain momentum at any point. Junior quarterback Sam Hartman passed for just 182 yards, as he could not get anything going against this coveted secondary.
The Running game wasn’t any better for Wake Forest as they were shut down to 34 carries on a mere 37 yards.
In a day where it seemed like upsets were going to be a trend, Clemson left no doubt today. Trevor Lawrence threw for 351 yards and had an elite 66 percent completion rate. Travis Etienne eclipsed the century mark on the day and add a touchdown on the ground.
The only nit-picking complaint you can give is that Clemson at times, could not finished drives and settled for field goals. When you win by such a large amount and that is your biggest issue, that is something that can be cleaned up.
For the Demon Deacons, losing impact players like Jamie Newman and Sage Surratt were going to be a hassle to replace. There were some bright spots in this game as Donovan Greene tallied 76 yards on three receptions as well as Jaquarii Roberson and Taylor Morin getting over 50 yards.
It takes a lot more than that however to compete with Clemson as they came up short.