Men of Steele: Best in the ACC?

Clemson's defense over the last five games presents a compelling case against the weekly referendums that are so prevalent these days.

Kevin Steele wasn't a popular dude during a 2-3 start in which his defense gave up a lot of big plays and a lot of rushing yards. Even when the defense shored things up and played winning football at North Carolina, a series of back-breaking penalties allowed the Tar Heels to drive for a late touchdown.

Five games later, the defense is carrying this team as the offense conducts target practice on its own feet in the red zone. Without lengthy stretches of dominant, clutch defense against Maryland, Georgia Tech and N.C. State, the Tigers win what, one or two of those games?

As bad as things seem right now, imagine 3-7 or 4-6. As close as the Tigers have come in their losses, excellent defense has been absolutely essential in their past three wins.

So now it's legitimate to wonder, as Heather Dinich did in this blog post, whether Clemson has the best defense in the ACC.

She makes the case that it is.

-- Clemson’s defense has allowed just one touchdown in each of its last five games. Clemson and West Virginia are the only schools in the nation that have done that. This is the longest streak by Clemson since 1989 when the Tigers did not allow more than one touchdown in each of the first five games. The longest streak in Clemson history allowing one touchdown or less is seven straight games, set by the 1981 national championship team.

-- Clemson’s defense has allowed just 19 touchdowns this year, tied for sixth best in the nation. West Virginia has allowed the fewest with 11 and Alabama is second with 13.

-- Clemson has allowed opponents to convert on third down just 34.7 percent of the time (25-72) and opponents have scored just four touchdowns in 14 red zone possessions over the past five games. Opponents scored touchdowns 12 of 17 opportunities in the first five games of the year.

-- Clemson allowed 36 runs of 10 yards or more in the first five games and just 24 in the last four. And that includes 10 by run-oriented Georgia Tech.

There's little doubt the Tigers have fielded the most dominant defense over the last five games. It's a tougher call when you compare the numbers for the whole season in conference play (and remember that these numbers are strictly for ACC games).

The numbers indicate the top three defenses are Clemson, Boston College and Virginia Tech.

Yes, Virginia Tech. Surprises me to say it, because the Hokies have not been their typical selves on that side of the ball every time I've watched them.

But lo and behold, they're tops in the ACC in scoring defense at 14.8 points per game yielded.

I would argue, though, that Virginia Tech gets knocked from the conversation because of several factors.

The Hokies are allowing 170.7 rushing yards per game. That alone should warrant giving them the boot, because no supposedly great defense should be that porous against the run.

They gave up 254 rushing yards to Wake Forest. Over the next two weeks, the Deacons rushed for a total of 66 yards in losses to Maryland and Boston College.

And, unlike Clemson and Boston College, Virginia Tech is helped by its offense. The Hokies lead the league in time of possession and are converting 47.1 percent of their third downs. Additionally, they have committed just five turnovers in six conference games.

The Tigers and Eagles don't have the benefit of leaning on their offenses. Boston College ranks 11th in the conference in time of possession and dead last in third-down conversions (29.4 percent). Boston College has come up empty on six of 22 trips to the red zone, losing two fumbles, throwing one interception, turning it over on downs once, and allowing the half to end another opportunity.

Clemson is about average in time of possession and has actually been pretty good at converting third downs, ranking fourth at a 43.6-percent clip.

But the Tigers are averaging just 124 rushing yards a game and 3.5 per carry, and that's worse than it looks given the low number of sacks they've given up.

And, of course, the orange-in-the-red-zone disasters. Missed field goals and interceptions have left the Tigers with nothing on 10 of their 23 trips inside opponents' 20-yard line.

So we're left with Clemson and Boston College, and it's a tough call.

Boston College ranks first in total defense, having given up 308.6 yards per game. Clemson is second at 313.3.

Boston College has given up 11 touchdowns, Clemson 12.

Boston College is allowing 4.4 yards per play, Clemson 4.8.

The one area where the Eagles have a decided edge is rush defense, where they've yielded just 75.1 yards per game. Clemson is allowing 125.

But the Tigers also had to face Georgia Tech, which racks up big rushing yardage on just about everyone. Boston College doesn't play the Yellow Jackets this year.

Here's how Boston College's seven conference foes played rank in total offense:

Virginia Tech 2
N.C. State 3
Florida State 6
Duke 7
Maryland 9
Clemson 10
Wake Forest 12

And Clemson's:

Miami 1
N.C. State 3
Georgia Tech 4
Florida State 6
North Carolina 8
Boston College 11

So Clemson has played four of the top six, and Boston College three of the top six.

The Eagles gave up 343 yards to Virginia Tech (not bad), 422 in a loss to N.C. State (bad), and 311 in a loss to Florida State (pretty good).

Clemson allowed 376 in a loss to Miami (not good), 275 in a win over N.C. State (great) and 307 in a loss to Florida State (pretty good).

Straying a bit away from conference-only stats, Boston College has given up an almost microscopic 14 runs of 10-plus yards this season. Clemson has allowed 60 runs of 10-plus yards.

At this point, I could see giving the edge to the Tigers because they've played utterly dominant football over the past 10 quarters.

But again, tough call.

On to some Wednesday linkage...

In Winston-Salem, the Deacons have already clinched a spot in the Atlantic Division cellar. Ouch.

Jim Grobe says his team is starting to grow up, though.

In this blog entry from Dan Collins, Grobe likes the attitude of this team.

“We’ve had very few issues with attitudes. We’ve had a couple of guys who were a little bit surly at times, but for the most part it’s just been a team that’s worked really hard that’s very deserving of winning. But that doesn’t do anything for you. You’ve got to go do it. You’ve got to perform on Saturday to make it happen. So we’ll see. It would be good for us. No question it would great for us to see a litlte bit of success from all the work we’ve put in. It’s been an amazing group, because as a coaching staff I’ve never had a staff work harder. We’ve tried every scheme, every thought we could come up with to try to find the right combination for these guys. And we’ve asked them to do a lot, and they’ve not backed down a second."

Question: How often do you hear coaches say that the attitude stinks, or that the team is mailing it in?

Maybe it's the cynic in me, but seldom do you not hear coaches raving about togetherness and work ethic when their teams are losing. They have to come up with something positive, don't they?

This guy says Wake Forest's impressive run under Grobe is over.

These things happen. Moments pass. Ireland went from European also-ran to "Celtic Tiger" to EU bailout candidate in little more than a decade. The Humpy Dance gave way to the Macarena, which gave way to the Soulja Boy, which gave way to the Dougie. "The Office" lost its mojo when Jim and Pam got together.

Speaking of Wake, that Jeff Bzdelik hire? Not looking too good at the moment. The Deacs lost at home to Stetson last week, and last night Virginia Commonwealth left Winston-Salem with a 21-point victory.

“Offensively we started panicking,” Coach Jeff Bzdelik said. “And just like Friday night in our opener (against Stetson), when we got behind, we started getting frantic and trying to be the hero and breaking away from what we want to do.

“And then it just snowballs from there. So our lack of discipline over 40 minutes is not there.”

Looks like the NFL folks are going to have some big questions for Cam Newton.

“There are going to be questions about the kid,” said the scout, who requested anonymity. “You’re going to want to sit down and do a lot of interviews with him, because he never makes a check or a call at the line of scrimmage. He gets everything from the sidelines, so all that stuff is going to be new to him.

“We’ll want to see how smart he is, and then there is the naive part. He let his dad pick his school for him and all this kind of stuff. If this situation gets really bad, there might be teams that just don’t want the PR nightmare.”



LW