Poking Through the Ashes of a Flameout
Coach Jim Grobe said there was more than enough blame for today’s 38-3 loss to Clemson to go around.
It starts with the coaching staff.
“We’re going to find out a lot when we go back and watch the film,’’ Grobe said. “I told our players, `This is a loss that first and foremost is on our coaching staff. We’re going to go back and look what we asked them to do and find out if we either asked them to do some things scheme-wise that weren’t very good, or asked them to do some things that maybe they weren’t capable of doing.’‘
But it doesn’t stop there.
“After we evaluate the coaches, then we’re going to evaluate the players and kind of look at all four quarters and what broke down at different times,’’ Grobe said. “I think there can be a lot of things that we can learn and grow from in this game. And we may find out that we’ve got some of the wrong guys playing.
“The thing we’ve got to make sure of is we always have a competitive program and if you’re the top guy and you’re playing good, that’s fine. But if you’re not then we may need to find somebody else.
“But I think our first priority is to evaluate ourselves and see scheme wise, game plan, offensively or defensively did we have a good plan or maybe we got out-planned a little bit. Because you’ve got to look at yourself as coaches and not just blame the kids all the time.’‘
Comments from the Clemson players may give Grobe and his staff more to contemplate. Defensive end Da’Quan Bowers said the Deacons were tipping their plays.
“We basically had everything broken down to a tip of looking at their heels to tell if they were going to pass or run,” Bowers said. “We were actually calling the plays that (Skinner) was going to run, so he had no choice but to check down.
“We could tell exactly what they were running by the way the line was lined up and the things that he was doing. … He was getting frustrated. I could tell in his eyes. I kind of said something to him, and he just looked at me and shook his head. So I knew something was wrong with him.”
One consolation, if it could be called that, was that defensive end Tristan Dorty actually returned to the game in the second half after being helped from the field with a sprained knee.
“Tristan has had a bad knee for a while now, and he’s been a day-to-day guy,’’ Grobe said. “He’s got a cartilage problem that needs to be fixed. It’s not dangerous. It just locked up on him out there.
“He’s a guy who has been nursing a problem, not a serious knee problem but one that has been driving him a little crazy now and hopefully we can get him through the season.’‘