The other thing that struck me about this game is that we started off playing the best defense we have played all year. Even the announcers were marveling at the improvement they were seeing in the D. Then we left several points on the field, Clemson got a questionable TD and gained confidence, our defense got tired and Clemson kept making fourth down plays to keep drives alive.
A few things going differently early on with our offense, like not having multiple false starts by our tackles, and the game would have had a different arc. Clemson may have still won but Tech would have pushed them to their limit either way.