No. 8 Clemson wakes up in the second half to get past Troy 27-16
CLEMSON — A week of thunder from Dabo Swinney wasn’t enough.
Neither was a lightning delay of an hour-and-a-half.
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The brave Clemson fans who stuck around Saturday were looking for something, anything, to wake this team up.
Halftime did the trick.
Down a shocking 16 at one point and by 13 halfway through, the Tigers looked a little more like themselves from there and won 27-16.
An opening loss to LSU served notice that this team probably isn’t fit for the national-championship billing that surrounded it all summer.
A horrific first half against a team from the Sun Belt sent a pretty strong suggestion that the Tigers might not be close to the Top 25.
But 1-1 is a heck of a lot better than 0-2 and a dumpster fire that would’ve been hard to extinguish.
The running game, which did basically nothing for six straight quarters, came to life with Adam Randall to start the third quarter. That, coupled with two opportunistic interceptions in Troy territory, was the difference.
After totaling 21 rushing yards on six carries in the first half, Randall finished with 112 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries with a long of 30.
Cade Klubnik passed for 196 yards and two touchdowns with a tipped-ball interception on an 18-of-24 clip.
Bryant Wesco had 118 receiving yards and two touchdowns on seven catches.
Last week, Troy was down two scores to Nicholls State in the first half before winning 38-20. And the Trojans, underdogs by more than 30 points, didn’t remotely play a clean or smart game in Death Valley: They piled up 10 penalties for 97 yards, four of them for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Clemson found itself down 16-0 in the most miserable half of football in these parts in a long time.
From the start Troy’s offense had something the Tigers’ offense has been searching for — a rhythm.
The Trojans managed to scheme up a matchup advantage when speedy back Tray Taylor motioned out wide in man coverage. The man on the other side was linebacker Jamal Anderson, who couldn’t handle Taylor’s speed or his double move.
The deep safety, Ricardo Jones, couldn’t get there in time and it was a 44-yard touchdown connection from Goose Crowder.
Clemson’s offense looked disjointed from the start, as it went three-and-out when it couldn’t run and Klubnik waited too long to find TJ Moore on a slant.
The lightning delay gave fans a long time to stew over what they’d seen over the first 10 minutes. The only positive was a 51-yard punt by Jack Smith.
Things were just as miserable after the delay. Third-year offensive coordinator Garrett Riley got so sick of the sputters that he called the entire offense for a talking-to on the sideline.
Moments later, the mess got worse when Luke Hodge tipped what looked like a routine pass from Klubnik to Josh Sapp up into the air deep in Clemson territory.
TJ Thompson snared the ball and bulled 4 yards to the end zone to put Clemson down 16-0 with 6:58 left in the half.
Riley and Swinney couldn’t believe their eyes. And they probably wanted to cover their ears to block out all the boo birds.
The offense finally got a spark when Klubnik hit Wesco for a big catch-and-run.
But upon earning a second-and-3 from the Troy 6-yard line, the offense got no further.
A draw by Klubnik was stuffed.
And then a low throw to Tristan Smith on third down, initially ruled to be a touchdown, was called back when a replay review revealed Smith’s knee touched the ground before he took off for the end zone.
A short field goal by Nolan Hauser put Clemson on the board, finally.
The Tigers missed out on an opportunity late in the first quarter when a fourth-down run by Randall produced a first down and put the ball into the red zone.
Problem was, he lost the ball just before he hit the ground and Justin Powe took it back 53 yards the other way.
And while the Tigers could claim to be their own worst enemy, Troy had quite a claim to that too given their two targeting penalties, two unsportsmanlike conduct infractions, a missed extra point and a missed long field goal at the end of the first half.
After rushing for 31 yards and 1.55 yards per carry against LSU, Clemson had 17 yards on the ground and 1.5 yards per rush before halftime against Troy.
The last time Clemson was held to three points at home in the first half was in 2012 when the Tigers lost 27-17 to South Carolina.
Clemson finally looked close to itself again on the first drive of the second half, using good blocking and powerful running by Randall to reach the end zone for the first time since Randall visited there late in the first half against LSU.
Randall accounted for 59 rushing yards on the eight-play, 75-yard drive that trimmed the deficit to 16-10, including a 1-yard plunge into the end zone.
Crowder made a big mistake on the second play of the next drive, throwing it to the flats within reach of corner Ashton Hampton.
Hampton tipped the ball into the air and it bounced off his backside and then the intended receiver’s back as Jones swooped in to pick it off before it hit the turf.
On the very next play Clemson ran hard play-action to draw the secondary in, and Wesco was all alone. Klubnik hit him for a 26-yard touchdown strike that finally put Clemson up, 17-16, with 10:07 left in the third quarter.
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A Ronan Hanafin interception of Crowder on the next possession helped put the Tigers into the red zone again, but poor run blocking ended up forcing a field-goal attempt and Hauser converted to make it 20-16.
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Clemson fans finally began to breathe easier when Klubnik sent up a moon ball that hit Wesco in perfect stride in the end zone for a 34-yard touchdown connection that made it 27-16 and capped a seven-play, 66-yard drive with 9:41 left.
The Tigers will travel to Atlanta (Ga.) to face Georgia Tech (2-0) next Saturday in what will be the two teams’ ACC opener.
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