Florida State offers perfect recipe for Clemson to pick up win No. 4

CLEMSON — There’s Clemson bad, which has been pretty bad.

Then there’s Florida State bad, which is worse.

Back when both schools were throwing their weight around in court to get a better deal from the ACC, no one envisioned such a light, weak matchup falling all the way down to the ACC Network.

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But at this point of utter futility at Death Valley, where Clemson hasn’t won since October of last year, getting smaller pieces of the conference revenue pie is pretty far down the list of concerns.

The Tigers just needed the taste of a victory, period.

And the Seminoles, who showed there’s a lower level of not being able to get out of your own way, were pretty close to the perfect recipe as the Tigers won 24-10 under the lights to improve to 4-5 overall and 3-4 in the ACC.

Clemson won at home for the first time in more than two months. That come-from-behind win over Troy feels like forever ago.

The Tigers beat their first power-conference foe at home since Virginia on Oct. 19, 2024, ending an unconscionable streak of six consecutive losses — their longest such home losing streak since Dabo Swinney was 2 years old.

After giving up 35 points to SMU and 46 to Duke in the past two games, it didn’t seem like a good bet that Clemson would hold down an FSU offense that ranked seventh nationally in scoring at 40 points per game.

But the Mustangs and Blue Devils were really good at throwing and catching. 

The Seminoles were … less so.

And a lot less so on this night.

Clemson still had some big busts in the first half, letting receivers run free several times.

Thomas Castellanos badly overthrew a wide-open receiver on what would’ve been a touchdown pass. And a few other accurate throws to guys running free were dropped.

The previous two offenses made Clemson pay. FSU didn’t.

That’s not to say Tom Allen’s defense didn’t otherwise answer the call after spending the past few weeks getting ripped apart from outside voices and one fairly prominent inside voice, that being the head coach.

The Noles entered averaging 241 rushing yards a game and were mostly smothered on this night, totaling a season-low 110.

Clemson did have six sacks that knocked 23 yards off that rushing total. And the Seminoles were in comeback mode after falling behind 18-0.

But when you stifle Gus Malzahn’s running game you tend to stifle everything else, and Castellanos was the team’s leading rusher with 31 yards on 11 attempts (26 of them on one carry).

It was a showing that probably made Clemson legend Brent Venables proud as he stood on the Tigers’ sideline while taking Oklahoma’s open date to come back to his old home.

The Tigers’ offense did its part too, taking the opening possession 75 yards on 13 plays for a touchdown that was followed by a “what the heck” fake field goal rush by Clay Swinney that made it 8-0.

Florida State threatened late in the first quarter and had first down at Clemson’s 10, but a botched exchange by Castellanos put the ball on the ground and Jeremiah Alexander recovered to give Clemson its ninth takeaway of the season (the Tigers would get one more on a late interception by Ricardo Jones).

Clemson made it 15-0 early in the second quarter on a 34-yard strike from Cade Klubnik to Antonio Williams, as Williams leaped high into the air in the end zone to snare a 50/50 ball and send the hill into frenzy.

After a Nolan Hauser field goal made it an 18-point margin, FSU drove 75 yards for a touchdown in the final two minutes to trim the halftime score to 18-7. The Seminoles were aided by a couple of strange calls, decisions and reviews by the officiating crew.

Klubnik, dealing with a quad contusion in addition to his high ankle sprain, fought through the pain and threw for 221 yards on a 20-of-27 clip.

The Tigers had just 319 yards and Florida State ended up with 360, but Clemson had better throwing and catching. Add in zero turnovers for the Tigers, and that was the difference.

Clemson rushed for 98 yards, with Adam Randall supplying 48 on 15 carries and Gideon Davidson 39 on 10 attempts.

Williams had six catches for 62 yards. Tristan Smith had four catches for 36 yards, and TJ Moore had three for 37.

FSU dropped to 4-5 and 1-5 in the ACC. After the Seminoles climbed off the mat last week with an unexpected spanking of Wake Forest, now all the talk in Tallahassee is going to turn back to whether the school will fork out the cash to buy out Mike Norvell.

No such talk at Clemson, unless it entails the cost of buying out a few more assistant coaches.

None of this was on anyone’s mind last offseason when Clemson and FSU earned a big victory over the ACC with their settlement.

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The victories on the field have been harder to come by — even harder at Death Valley.

Thus, Swinney and Clemson will take this one and enjoy the heck out of it.

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They’ve been bad.

But not Florida State bad.

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