Vic Beasley has cost opponents 76 yards on the year.

He’s made eight sacks this season — good for fourth in the country — and leads a Clemson defense that ranks among the top 20 in the country in almost every significant category.

Beasley will threaten to blow up the Syracuse (3-4, 1-2 Atlantic Coast) backfield when the Orange visits Clemson (5-2, 4-1 ACC) at 7 p.m. on Saturday in Clemson, South Carolina. When asked about stopping the 6-foot-3, 235-pound graduate student during his weekly Tuesday teleconference, SU head coach Scott Shafer offered up a joke about Beasley before complimenting the entire Tigers defense and touching on how the Orange might protect true freshman quarterback AJ Long.

“Maybe block him with four guys, run the ball away from him, pray he has a cold or something,” Shafer said.

Blocking Beasley one-on-one will be especially difficult, Shafer said, and the same is true for the rest of the Clemson defense.

It’s also important for SU players to ignore any hype surrounding their opponents, he added.

“You got to knock all the other pomp and circumstance out of it because it doesn’t matter,” Shafer said. “What matters is what’s going on between the white lines and what’s going on for (SU left tackle) Sean (Hickey) and any other guy playing up front, offense or defense, between himself and the guy across from him.”

Shafer pointed to some of the top defenses Syracuse played against earlier in the season like Notre Dame, Florida State and Louisville — currently the No. 39, 58 and 11 teams in total defense, respectively. Clemson is No. 13, allowing just 283 yards per game.

“This one is ranking right up there with all those teams,” Shafer said. “Vic is obviously one special player on that team, but there’s a bunch of them to go around, so to me you just try to change things up and not try to put people in positions where they’re in one-on-one’s all the time.”

Published on October 21, 2014 at 2:14 pm

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