Many good things were said about the Clemson defense coming into this season. With the amount of talent returning there was no question this defense had the potential to be very good. Adding in a few young faces to increase depth made many feel this defense could be one of the best in the country. After a fairly pedestrian performance against Duke in week one, the Tiger defense has lived up to expectations since. Clemson is ranked ninth in total yards allowed per game. In addition, the defense is also tied for fifth most takeaways in the country with 10 so far. This week the Clemson defense will have to sustain this level of play, especially the front seven, in order to try to stop the Wake Forest “slow mesh” offense.
Wake Forest and the Slow Mesh Offense
In 2014 head coach Dave Clawson and offensive Coordinator Warren Ruggiero made the move to Wake Forest from Bowling Green. Quickly they realized they would have to do something more innovative with their offense in order to compete with programs like Clemson and Florida State in the ACC. They knew with the size of the school and its budget it was going to be very hard to recruit the same caliber of athlete. So they came up with a scheme their players could be successful in that was different from what others were already doing.
In comes the slow mesh concept. This concept is built off of the run-pass option game that Clawson and Ruggiero ran at Bowling Green. Except with this RPO (run-pass option) game the timing at the mesh point, the place where the quarterback-to-running back handoff exchange takes place, slows down. This allows the quarterback to slow down his read in the option in order to make the correct decision.
Along with that the slow mesh also forces the safeties and linebackers to slow down their reads and can even put them out of position. This will either make the ball easier to run if the defense does not keep enough players between the offensive tackles, or open up passing windows downfield for the quarterback to throw into. Current Notre Dame and former Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman perfected the position in this offense. Now it is on the current Demon Deacons starting quarterback Mitch Griffis to continue the success of this offensive scheme.
Slowing Down the Slow Mesh
Trying to stop this slow mesh scheme is not at all easy to do. This is why Wake Forest is averaging 426.5 yards of total offense this season. The offense is made to find the natural holes in defenses. It does not take a bunch of five-star players to run the offense effectively. The best way to shut down the whole scheme is for the interior defensive linemen to create penetration on the line of scrimmage.
When the defensive tackles push the interior offensive linemen into the backfield it messes with the mesh point. Handing the ball off is difficult to do with a 300-pound lineman falling backward into you. This will force Griffis to speed up his reads which is something he still struggles with. Not only that, Griffis is only five-foot-eleven. So getting in his face at that mesh point makes it much harder for him to see his correct read.
Right now Griffis is completing just under 60% of his passes. He has nine touchdowns so far this season but also six interceptions. In the Demon Deacons’ last game against Georgia Tech, he threw three of those interceptions. Griffis is very good when given time to comfortably run the scheme right. Under pressure, he gets flustered and makes bad choices with the football. Interior pressure will be essential in this game for Clemson.
Tigers That Must Step Up
Three guys who must have a great day on Saturday are the star defensive tackles Ruke Orhorhoro, Tyler Davis, and Peter Woods. They do not necessarily need to fill the stat sheet but pushing that Wake Forest offensive line at least two or three yards in the backfield will be crucial. A defensive tackle’s main objective is to cause havoc by creating penetration up front. This week it will be more important than ever those guys do their job.
From there it will be up to the rest of the defense to capitalize off this pressure and make plays. The linebackers need to tackle well and the defensive backs have to be disciplined with their eyes. If they are, more turnovers should happen and they’ll give their improving offense more opportunities to score. It will all have to start with those defensive tackles winning inside.
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