Ohio State Football: 3 takeaways from dominant win over Clemson

2. Clemson looked lost for a majority of the night

Similar to their National Championship game against LSU, Clemson got off to a great start tonight. Lawrence looked efficient and the offense was moving very well.

But after the first quarter, they had no juice and looked as if they did not belong. Clemson scored just 14 points in the final three quarters and gave Punter Will Spiers a lot of action.

On the surface, Lawrence’s stats do not look that bad. He finished with 400 yards and two touchdowns while completing 68 percent of his passes. But, the Clemson offense was not able to capitalize when they needed points.

They were below average on third down (5/12), and that made a huge difference as they lost out on the time of possession battle by a wide margin (34:05 to 25:55).

Regardless of the offensive performance, Clemson’s defense was their biggest liability. There were miscommunication issues on a regular basis early on in this game. And it only got worse when they lost their star linebacker James Skalski after his targeting penalty.

They were able to pick off Fields at the start of the first half. But in the end, Brett Venables’ crew was simply not able to get enough stops to keep this game competitive.

This was a very disappointing end to what was a fantastic career for Trevor Lawrence. Finishing 34-2 is an incredible achievement for not just Lawrence, but this entire Clemson team and staff. Unfortunately, there will be a sour taste in their mouth to when they think on how this dominating run ended.