Myles Murphy, Clemson defense get sack happy in win over FSU

Xavier Thomas celebrates a sack in the win over FSU.

by Zachary Wagner - Correspondent - Sat Oct 30 21:16:30 GMT-04:00 2021

It wasn’t pretty at times, but the Clemson football team found a way to win its 32nd straight game inside of Memorial Stadium in a 30-20 win over the Florida State Seminoles on Saturday afternoon. The offense looked better at times and the Tigers’ defense once again stepped up to the occasion when needed most to secure the win and move Clemson to 5-3 on the season.

The defense sacked Florida State’s Jordan Travis six times on the afternoon and limited the Seminole rushing attack to just 68 yards and two yards per attempt on the ground. Defensive Coordinator Brent Venables was pleased with the way his defense performed and contained the ‘Noles QB.

“First and foremost, all the credit goes to the players,” Venables said after the win. “They were playing with determination and playing with tremendous effort and being physical. I thought they did a great job of harassing him (Travis). Coach Bates and Coach Hall did a great job with their pass-rushing gameplan. I thought they affected him for a good part of the night.”

The star of the night on defense went to defensive lineman Myles Murphy who recorded 2.5 sacks, six total tackles and a blocked PAT. Venables has seen the potential of Murphy having a breakout game coming, which is just what happened on Saturday afternoon inside of Death Valley.

“We had challenged our guys, we haven’t blocked a kick in a few years,” Venables said. “What a huge play by Myles there. Myles has been right there all year, and so close to having that breakout game. I think he played well and played with his length and speed and he has tremendous power as well. It was a big night for Myles.”

After Florida State started the game 2-of-3 on third down, Clemson then held the Seminoles to just 2-of-10 the remainder of the game. An issue in the loss to Pitt last year, Venables feels like his defense is starting to pick back up where they were the last few seasons on third-down defense.

“We said to ourselves coming into this weekend, we’ve been the best third down defense in college football over the last nine years,” said Venables. “We spent a lot of time on Monday correcting some things from Pitt, but also looking at the seasons prior of some third and fourth downs that we kind of just gave away. We’ve done a good job of keeping people out of the endzone by-in-large, but we keep giving up extended drives and staying on the field.”

“It’s good to play a little cleaner against a quality opponent,” Venables said. “Tonight, there’s a few times we could have been better. I’m always about giving the opponent credit, always, but not when we’re doing bonehead things and not executing and doing the small things the right way. Tonight was much better and I thought they responded to the turnovers and did a fabulous job responding to those.”

Clemson will now turn the page of the calendar to the month of November with three ACC games remaining and then the in-state rivalry game against South Carolina to conclude the 2021 season. Venables hopes his defense can finish off the season with an exclamation point and make November a month to remember.

“We’re scratching away and making improvements to hopefully be able to have a great month of November now,” Venables said. “We were 3-1 in October and have a chance to have a clean slate in November to have a great story and a great finish. People probably have some doubts and some questions about us, and that’s probably what we deserve. We have a chance to put an exclamation point on the finish though of a tough season.”