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QUESTION: What does Clemson need to do to beat LSU?
The Clemson Tigers will have to do many different things to beat the LSU Tigers in the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship Game. Clemson’s receivers need to get healthy after a difficult semifinal against Ohio State. Clemson’s offensive line has to pave the way for Travis Etienne to run the ball, move the chains, and keep Joe Burrow off the field as much as possible. Trevor Lawrence needs his best game of the season. Clemson’s secondary, which was not especially sharp against Ohio State’s fast receivers, will have to somehow hang with LSU’s even better receivers. We could make a long list of tasks Dabo Swinney must put before his team heading into the Louisiana Superdome. All the items would be part of a winning recipe on January 13.
Yet, if you had to choose one, come on — it’s not very hard at all: Get home. Get to Joe Burrow.
As legendary football man Al Davis said, “The opposing team’s quarterback must go down, and he must go down hard.” That might not be the whole ball game in New Orleans, but it is certainly most of it.
If Clemson doesn’t pound Burrow, or — at the very least — make Burrow feel very insecure in the pocket (think of Alabama rattling Gino Torretta of Miami in the 1993 Sugar Bowl, a national championship game also held in the Superdome), this game will end in only one way: with Clemson losing.
You saw what Burrow did against an Oklahoma team which could not rush him and could not bother him. If Burrow has a clean pocket, it’s game over. Burrow is a dominant player having one of the all-time greatest seasons in college football’s 150-year history. Clemson has to punch him in the mouth and make him doubt himself.
It’s a tall order, but if any team can achieve something which is very difficult to pull off, it’s Clemson. If a defensive coordinator can contain the LSU offense, it’s Brent Venables. If a non-SEC college football program can win back-to-back national championships, it’s Clemson.
It is time to make Joe Burrow flinch. Clemson can’t win a national title without doing that on January 13.
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