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The Daily Tar Heel

UNC defense gives up season-high 59 points at Clemson

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Football v. Clemson

CLEMSON, S.C. — Everett Withers paused before sitting down at the post-game press conference table.

The North Carolina interim football coach saw the orange banner hanging behind his chair and asked a team spokesman if he had to sit in front of the cloth bearing a smattering of tiger pawprints.

At his back, Withers had a constant reminder of the Clemson team that tallied the most points against the Tar Heels since he came to Chapel Hill — a 59-38 demolition by the No. 7 Tigers that sent his squad to 5-3 overall and 1-3 in the ACC.

Early on, it didn’t look as though the game would yield the most points scored against UNC since 2005. But the 35-point third quarter Clemson orchestrated transformed Saturday’s contest from upset alert to a beat-the-traffic game for Tar Heel fans.

“We knew it was a good ball game in the first half,” freshman cornerback Tim Scott said. “Since they’re home they’re going to have energy from the crowd. So when we started making mistakes, we got a little down and we need to keep our heads up. But it was too late for that.”

UNC played Clemson to a 24-17 halftime score with the help of two Jheranie Boyd touchdown catches from Bryn Renner and the defense holding the Tigers’ rushing attack to just 15 yards. Clemson (8-0, 5-0) entered the game with the ACC’s second-best rushing offense.

The Tar Heels remained true to first-half form by forcing a three-and-out on Clemson’s opening possession of the second half. But that would be the last time UNC had a semblance of its first-half self.

In the third quarter, Clemson rattled off five touchdowns to UNC’s one, which came off a 100-yard kick return by T.J. Thorpe.

The freshman had lost his job as return man after fumbling a kick against Miami last week, but he won it back after replacement Charles Brown fumbled a kickoff to Clemson that resulted in the Tigers’ second score of the third.

“We were watching the previous returns all half, and I just figured they were giving us lanes,” Thorpe said. “I figured if someone hit the hole hard enough we’d have a really good chance of taking one to the house.”

The Tar Heels would run just seven offensive plays in the third quarter following Clemson’s first touchdown of the half with 10:02 remaining in the quarter. Those five Tiger touchdowns came via a quarterback keeper, passes to three different receivers and a fumble return by a defensive lineman for his second score of the game.

Clemson quarterback Tajh Boyd picked apart the UNC secondary for 367 yards and five touchdowns. Piling on to defeat was the loss of starting cornerback Matt Merletti, who left the game in the second quarter with a left knee injury.

“It was tough sitting there on the sideline because the offense didn’t really get on the field too much,” said running back Giovani Bernard, whose offense coughed up the ball six times on the day.

“It was tough seeing those DBs, but everybody has their job and everybody has to do their thing and it was unfortunate things like that happened.”

Bernard entered Saturday with five consecutive 100-yard rushing games and was looking to become the first-ever Tar Heel running back with six-straight 100-yard games. The redshirt freshman saw limited time due to a hip injury and finished the day with 44 rushing yards.

Contact the Sports Editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.

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