'This s— is f—ing embarrassing!' one Clemson player yelled to no one in particular as he exited the field. A program that won at least 14 games in four of five seasons from 2015-19 has now failed to surpass 12 wins in three consecutive seasons.
Tennessee’s defense, which gave up nine touchdowns on 10 drives in a South Carolina loss that imploded its College Football Playoff hopes, rallied to surrender just three points in the next six quarters. And for all of Clemson’s failures deep in Tennessee territory on Friday, the Vols’ defense had plenty to do with the Tigers’ setting for — and missing — field goals.said of the defense. “Every game, nothing was good enough. Every game we won, still the defense. We lost the game? Defense.
The Vols overloaded Clemson’s offensive line at times, creating tough-to-predict blitzes for Klubnik pre-snap and missed blocking assignments post-snap. “You don’t stumble into 10 wins. We won a ton of games, and our confidence wasn’t shaken one iota ,” Banks said. “We bounced back.”