The first thing that went through my head when Ponder fumbled to seal our victory over FSU was, ‘That didn’t happen. I know that what I wanted to happen really just didn’t happen.’ I was praying and we had guys over there praying, and we were like, ‘that’s what we pray for.’ I saw the fumble and I knew we had it, but I had to wait for everybody else to get excited. But when I saw the refs and everybody on the sideline, that’s when I went crazy and grabbed Jarvis Williams. Everything was in fast forward. You tried to run past people and grab them a little bit but everybody was running around going crazy.
I saw a girl holding a sign asking me to marry her when I was warming up. I hadn’t ever seen her before. I don’t know if she’s an admirer. I don’t know who wants to marry me. But I am an attractive guy. And I am a bachelor. Somebody said, ‘Owen, look. You see the sign over there? Somebody over there wants to marry you.’ I said, ‘where at?’ So I went over there and blew a couple kisses to her. I saw it and it was funny but I thought, ‘somebody’s going to make a big deal out of this. The camera’s going to see it and my mom and everybody would be asking me, ‘who was that girl?” It’s all part of the game. When fans want to interact with you and have that relationship with you it’s a lot of fun.
Clemson is an athletic defense and an athletic team. We just have to match that athleticism and beat them into submission. That’s the one way you can beat speed and strength – go at them hard and wear them out. That’s what we have done this year, tire defenses out at the beginning of the game so they don’t have enough left in the tank when it comes to crunch time.
I met Clemson safety DeAndre McDaniel at the ACC Kickoff. I kicked it with him a little bit and he’s a cool guy. It’s fun when you see guys off the field. Underneath the jersey, they’re just like teammates. We talk about football, we talk about girls and the NFL Draft and other players in the conference and stuff like that. But on the football field, he is an enemy. He is an opponent. He is going to try and get the ball out of my hands as much as possible. So come game time, it’s business.
Having three of our last four on the road, that’s just the schedule we have. We have been able to play a lot of home games since I have been here. With three out of our last four games being away, we just have to take it one week at a time and make sure we travel well
Coach Tom O’Brien is excited about us being 6-2. His job is to keep us grounded, but he’s excited and he’s proud of our success as a team and an organization. You want to ride on the momentum. You want to feel good. You want to celebrate, you want to look back and say, ‘We did this. I was a part of this.’ But as soon as the first whistle blows during Tuesday morning’s practice, that’s it, it’s behind us and you have to worry about the upcoming week.
At 3-1 in the ACC and 2-0 in the Atlantic, we’re in the driver’s seat so everybody’s out to get us now. Two or three years ago we were out to get everybody else and spoil their dreams and bowl chances.
We have always been the best passing offense. And now we have the best overall offense. It makes you feel good to know you don’t have to be that guy the offense will rely on all the time. We have a lot of playmakers in the receiving game and in the running game. We have guys that are stepping up and getting used to the offense, and executing it to the point where they can be a huge factor. For opposing defenses, it’s pick your poison.
When you establish the running game like we did against Florida State, who one of the best defenses in the country, it kind of fixed our attack against other team’s defensive adjustments. It’s very good to know we finally have a running game to go along with our perfect passing game.
It’s good to have a quarterback that can throw and run. That’s the role of quarterbacks these days, because it gives you another threat defenses have to game-plan against. In the ACC, we have talented and skilled defensive linemen, but when they chase, they get tired because they’re not used to it. If Russell Wilson was a pocket quarterback like he has been at times in his career, you will get sacks. But when you know he has the ability to get away, it hurts you, because it tires out the defense. When we see him run, we know he is going to get a lot of yards. The threat you can’t plan against is a running quarterback. That’s hardest the thing to deal with on a defense. If you want to cover us all deep and back everybody up, then shoot, we’ll take off on you. It’s another thing you have to plan against and it sets up different aspects of the offense as well.
