Venables proud of taking road win after shaking off rust

Venables knows his group has areas to improve, but he'll take a road win any day.

by Zachary Wagner - Correspondent - Sat Oct 16 14:00:08 GMT-04:00 2021

Syracuse had 138 rushing yards in the first half. The Orange had just 53 rushing yards in the second half of the game, and the Clemson defense once again came up clutch in the closing moments of the game in the 17-14 win at Syracuse Friday night. The defense held an Orange rushing attack that put up over 350 rushing yards against Wake Forest last week to 165 this week, and most of those yards came on two big chunk runs by Syracuse running back Sean Tucker.

Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables thinks his defense was rusty coming out of the gates from the bye week, but some halftime adjustments helped set the tone for his defense in the second half.

“I think we were just a little rusty with our fits,” Venables said after the game. “They were doing some things schematically that were a little different, things we were prepared for, but you can’t emulate everything in practice. Their back is a good player and I think he only had 26 rushing yards in the second half. We did a much better job of getting settled in and getting into a rhythm. I think we did some good things coming out of halftime, adjusting our leverage points and our entry position and some things we were doing up front.”

“Hate that we got on our heels a little bit there and had to play on the ropes in the first half,” said Venables. “Whether it was playing a three-man front or a four-man front, we were too soft. We played much better in the second half. The quarterback was never really a factor in running the ball, so that was big. Overall we played much better in the second half until about that seven minute mark there in the fourth quarter.”

The offense once again relied on the defense down the stretch for the Tigers tonight, handing the ball back over to Syracuse with four minutes remaining while leading by three points. The Orange would drive the ball down the field and get into field goal range, before Syracuse’s Andre Szmyt sailed the ball wide left to clinch the victory for the Tigers. Venables said his defense followed his mentality to come up big in the win.

“I’m not a bend-don’t-break kind of guy,” said Venables. “We have to be cleaner, that’s the bottom line. It’s third-and-long and we’re not covering the flat or coming out of coverage because they thought he was going to scramble, we have to let someone else go make those plays and stick to our assignment. Right now we have some young guys that are doing some things that are just not disciplined. I think we made it interesting there at the end, but we have to do a better job.”

“We played good enough to win,” said Venables. “We have a lot to be thankful for, they are some tough guys. Another one score game, but our guys are comfortable in these situations. There’s some meat on the bone that we left and some opportunities to make it not so interesting, but through experience hopefully you’ll learn. We have to do a good job as coaches in getting it back in front of them and making them learn from it. Just really proud of the guys for coming on the road and finding a way to win.”