Cavaliers hope ACC loss to Clemson will help in bowl prep

By Jerry Ratcliffe

CHARLOTTE — Back in the day, when Bobby Bowden engineered Florida State’s dynasty, outsiders used to describe the ACC as Florida State and the eight dwarfs. With Clemson winning its 28th consecutive game against the rest of the ACC, just how big is the gap between the Tigers and everyone else?

Saturday night it was a 45-point gap. Clemson 62, Virginia 17 in the ACC Championship game at Bank of America Stadium. The Cavaliers, winners of the Coastal Division, were acknowledged as the second-best team the ACC had to offer, and they were pummeled.

While there were some bright spots for Virginia offensively, it was still a monumental landslide.

So, just how big is the gap between Clemson and the rest of the league?

“Oh, I mean, it’s big,” said UVA quarterback Bryce Perkins, who helped the Cavaliers become the only team to stack up 300 yards of total offense against Clemson’s defense this season (387, actually). “Coming out here tonight and just seeing it firsthand, they’re a great team, and I think the gap between them and the ACC is big, but I feel like we’re closer than people think. It is big, but we have the opportunity in the years coming up to close that gap.”

Bronco Mendenhall saw it on film all week, and then saw it up close, and walked away impressed with likely the best team he has faced in his career. Clemson posted 619 yards of total offense on a pretty decent, but battered Virginia defense, the most yardage given up by a Cavaliers team since No. 2 Oregon put up 632 in 2013.

There was actually no way a scout team could do justice in attempting to simulate the buzzsaw that Virginia was going to face.

“I think maybe for almost anyone in the nation to match [Clemson’s] personnel and execution would be difficult,” Mendenhall said after watching his 9-4 team fall to No. 3 Clemson. “They’re very, very skilled at quarterback at an elite level, very skilled at running back at an elite level, very skilled at at least three of the receiver positions with a very strong offensive front. 

“So the personnel is national caliber, national-championship caliber, not only across the board but then including some depth. Yeah, the chance to match that, very difficult.”

With an extra week of practice, an extra game against the defending champions, a program that has won two of the last three national titles, was actually a positive for the Cavaliers. Not in terms of the score or yardage surrendered, but experience against the top shelf of college football.

Learning experience, measuring stick, choose your own adjective, but Mendenhall and his team didn’t get emotionally crushed as one might expect after this game. They coached and played their hearts out, had some success, and learned a lot.

“The game showed us exactly where this program has to go to be able to compete with No. 1, 2, 3, 4,” Perkins said. “Every year we’ve gotten better (under Mendenhall), UVA has gotten better, so I think this game is going to allow everybody else coming back and for the years to come to know exactly how much to give and how much more they have to give and execute, and how much more we have to execute at a higher level to be able to finally take over the ACC.”

That was the attitude of several teammates after the game. They acknowledged Clemson’s greatness, admitted for the most part that the chasm that exists between the Tigers and the rest of the league is mighty. However, they collectively seemed upbeat about the future of this team and of the program.

Sunday, they will learn what bowl and opponent they will be assigned to, largely dependent upon whether the College Football Playoff committee keeps them ranked — if so, they should be headed to the Orange Bowl.

Lesson learned last night against Clemson, the Cavaliers will try to use that to their advantage should they be matched up against an Alabama, Georgia or Florida.

“So each year, the bowl-game quality and tier seems to be escalating,” Mendenhall said. “The stage that it’s on seems to be escalating. My job is to advance our program and have it match those stages at a really high level. Some of the challenges now, as the roster becomes a little more limited, the stretch that applies on myself and the staff to compensate and give our guys the best chance, we have to do a better job there.”

Virginia was without its leading receiver and one of the nation’s most dangerous kickoff returners in senior Joe Reed, who sat out the game with an injury, and lost linebacker Jordan Mack during the game to a nagging ankle injury that has plagued him the past three weeks.

Still, there were bright spots as the offense continued to show improvement and a great deal of imagination from coordinator Robert Anae, who had come under fire at midseason for being too predictable. Anae has added several new wrinkles to the offense over the past five weeks as Virginia put up more yards against Clemson than any opponent this season.

“A lot went into our offensive plan, and Robert and I, over the past six weeks, there’s been a significant amount of work and improvement that’s gone into our offense that has really helped kind of cover up some of the deficiencies that have shown up. 

“It just wasn’t quite enough tonight on either side to make the game competitive from beginning to end, but I liked our offensive plan a lot.”

So did Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who praised Virginia’s efforts.

“They do a really nice job with their scheme,” Swinney mentioned several times about UVA’s offense. “They took a lot of easy throws, but more importantly, they had a lot of success on first down. Man, give them credit. They just did a nice job and had a couple of unusual things. They put some good things on tape that will make us better for sure.”

Perkins said that Virginia learned a couple of things for sure against the Tigers.

One, he said the Cavaliers’ physicality has to be greater when taking on an elite opponent like Clemson. Two, they have to eliminate mental errors, that great teams capitalize on mistakes.

“So we’ve got to fix those, and our physicality level has to be greater,” Perkins said. “Now, it’s time to start thinking about our next game, our bowl game, and see how much we can improve until then.”