So much of the story coming into this game yesterday was about Wake Forest's slow mesh, and Clemson's annual destruction of the tactic courtesy of its ownership of the line of scrimmage.

As it turned out this game was defined more by the slow mush of Clemson's pass coverage.

And we really should've seen it coming.

Join Tigerillustrated.com subscribers on The West Zone message board!

OK, maybe we shouldn't have seen something that bad coming.

But we spent quite a bit of time in recent weeks expressing real concern about the coverage lapses against Furman and then Louisiana Tech.

Just too many big plays given up in those games. And it was way too easy -- far easier than we'd seen for a long time during Brent Venables' decade-long reign.

So now three important players aren't part of the equation against Sam Hartman and some really good receivers, and we go in thinking Clemson is going to win by double digits?