When the football left Tajh Boyd’s hand from just outside the Clemson goal line, Sammy Watkins was still 2 yards behind Ri’Shard Anderson.

As the ball soared over the 35-yard line, Watkins passed Anderson. And by the time he caught it at the 45, he was long gone.

The 91-yard touchdown gave Clemson a 28-point lead with 40 seconds left in the third quarter, and broke the back of SU’s comeback attempt before it ever really started.

“When our receivers get on these guys’ toes they get an opportunity to run away from them,” Boyd said, “and that’s just what he did.”

Boyd threw for 455 yards, breaking his own school record, and five touchdowns as the Tigers ran away from Syracuse (2-3, 0-1 Atlantic Coast) 49-14 in SU’s ACC debut on Saturday. The 48,961 that filled the Carrier Dome watched No. 3 Clemson (5-0, 3-0) burn the slower Syracuse secondary time and time again, racking up 624 yards of total offense, despite Boyd and Watkins both battling injuries and the starters being sidelined for the fourth quarter.

And even when the defense did hold its own — halting the Tigers on six straight drives spanning the second and third quarters — SU was unable to capitalize.

“There was a time and a place where we had them. We had them right where we wanted,” H-back Ashton Broyld said. “We just didn’t execute.”

The secondary, which was playing without cornerback Brandon Reddish, was plagued by frequent miscommunications as Clemson mesmerized the Orange with its up-tempo motion offense.

“You could have one guy and when the guy motions they snap the ball so fast your head be spinning,” safety Durell Eskridge said.

The dizzying afternoon began on Clemson’s first drive. Three plays, 82 yards, 38 seconds.

Boyd capped it with a 60-yard scoring strike to a wide-open Adam Humphries, and continued to obliterate the Orange defensive backs, finishing the opening frame on pace for 880 passing yards and eight touchdowns.

A 42-yard touchdown to Humphries with 15 seconds left in the first quarter made it 21-0 Clemson, a lead SU head coach Scott Shafer called almost insurmountable.

On that play, SU cornerback Julian Whigham left Humphries near the 35-yard line, but no one picked him up. After Humphries spun out of an Eskridge tackle at the 2 and stepped into the end zone, Eskridge jumped up and ran over to Whigham.

He slapped both hands against his helmet twice, jerking his neck in frustration before raising his hands toward Whigham’s face and appearing to plead with the sophomore.

“We could’ve played with them into the fourth quarter, all the way down to the end of the game, we could’ve played with them,” Eskridge said. “I feel like they ain’t earned everything they got. I feel like we gave them a lot of stuff.”

As the Tigers offense scored, the Orange offense sputtered, registering just one first down on its first three drives. An 18-yard out route to Watkins set up a Zac Brooks 1-yard score with 4:07 left in the first quarter.

Lined up wide left, Watkins worked on SU cornerback Keon Lyn. Lyn stayed close until the break, but when Watkins turned his hips back to the sideline, Lyn was caught with his weight back. Watkins was just too quick.

But that athletic advantage disappeared after two more second-quarter scores.

The Orange held Clemson scoreless on six straight drives.

A Ritchy Desir interception and a lengthy Devante McFarlane fake-punt run gave SU possession in Tigers field position twice in the third quarter.

Twice Syracuse couldn’t convert.

“We tried to pull every wrinkle out of the book that we could to try to make it exciting and try to get back in this thing,” Shafer said, “and for a minute there I thought we had a shot.”

But once Boyd launched his high-arcing 91-yard bomb to Watkins with 40 seconds left in the third quarter, the Orange’s window of opportunity closed.

Said Watkins: “I made the biggest play of the game.”

Published on October 5, 2013 at 7:06 pm

Contact Stephen: sebail01@syr.edu | @Stephen_Bailey1