Rockdale
graduate Grady Jarrett recorded his first sacks of the season, Garry
Peters (Heritage) helped the Tigers’ secondary hold Wake Forest to less
than four yards per pass attempt and Clemson won another Atlantic Coast
Conference game 34-20 Thursday at BB&T Field.
Clemson
(7-2, 6-1 Atlantic Coast Conference), which came into the night second
nationally in average yards allowed at 268.6, held Wake Forest (2-7,
0-5) to well below that total. The Demon Deacons, losers of six
consecutive games in the series, could only muster 119 total yards,
though they did lose 76 yards on negative yardage plays and five Clemson
sacks.
One
and a half of those sacks belonged to Jarrett, the senior defensive
tackle’s first of the season. Meanwhile, Peters had three pass breakups
and did a nice job matched up most of the game against Matt James, a 6-5
freshman wide out who came into the night averaging 12 yards per catch
but facing the 6-0 Peters was held to just three catches for 28 yards.
Jarrett
and Peters were also part of a team-wide effort to shut down Wake after
the hosts shocked the No. 21 Tigers with 17 first-half points. It was
the most points the last-place Demon Deacons had scored in any first
half this season, and it was a 17-17 game heading into the third
quarter.
Clemson
only allowed three more points the rest of the way on a Mike Weaver
30-yard field goal with 11:08 to go in the game. The Demon Deacons
settled for the three-point try thanks to the efforts of Peters, a
redshirt-senior, who made a nice play on a pass to James for an
incompletion on third down.
A mistake-filled first half led to a number of scoring plays as the teams hit the halftime locker room all even.
Clemson
quarterback Cole Stoudt was intercepted by Kevin Johnson and the Demon
Deacons turned that into a John Wolford-to-Cam Serigne four-yard
touchdown and a 7-0 lead with just over a minute to go in the opening
quarter. Wake Forest took advantage of a special teams turnover, but
also gave one back on a special teams mistake of its own. Clemson punt
returner Adam Humphries made an all-advised attempt to field a punt
sailing over his head and it bounced off his hands and was recovered by
Johnson. That led to the second touchdown catch for Serigne, this time
from 14 yards to put Wake up 14-10.
On
what was originally the final play of the second half, Clemson was
flagged for a personal foul penalty on Wake Forest’s hail mary attempt
as time expired. The Demon Deacons were allowed to run one more play and
Weaver booted a 50-yard field goal to even things up at the break.
Midway
through the second quarter, Wake punter Alex Kinal fielded a snap with
his knee down, giving Clemson the ball at the 23 and the Tigers went up
10-7 two plays later on Stoudt’s 18-yard scoring pass to Wayne Gallman.
After
Serigne’s second touchdown, Clemson went 75 yards in just over four
minutes and took a 17-14 lead on Artavis Scott’s four-yard touchdown
catch.
In
nine games, Peters is fifth on the team with 33 tackles, including six
tackles for loss and eight pass breakups. Jarrett, who is projected by
NFLDraftScout.com to go in the first three or four rounds of next
April’s NFL Draft, is right behind his former county rival with 29
tackles, six and a half of which have been for a loss.
Clemson
will now play a pair of Atlanta schools in two consecutive weekends,
starting with next Saturday’s conference regular season finale at
Georgia Tech. The Tigers host Georgia State on November 22.
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