It was, by no means, perfect. Not even close. But it was just what the Clemson football program needed.

The Tigers shook off a sloppy first half and coasted to a 45-17 win Saturday over Football Championship Series foe The Citadel before a sleepy Memorial Stadium crowd announced at 76,000.

The most important part was not that the Tigers evened their record at 1-1. After a week of talk and turmoil, they pushed an ugly season-opening 34-10 loss to Alabama out of their minds, or at least into a darker corner of their collective psyche.

“Every time you turn on ESPN, you’ve got (analysts) Mark May and Lou Holtz talking about how Clemson got manhandled, everybody’s talking about how well Alabama did,” said quarterback Cullen Harper, who completed 14 of 18 passes for 192 yards and a touchdown. “It was good to go out and forget about that.”

Clemson led 21-7 at the half, and the game should have already been in hand by then. Senior tailback James Davis lost a fumble at The Citadel’s 2 (only the second lost fumble of his career), and a Davis run on fourth-and-2 from The Citadel 26 came up short.

“One of the biggest things for me was capitalizing,” said junior center Thomas Austin. “We had chances to get points on the board and we didn’t score. You can’t do that. Really good teams are going to make us pay for that.”

At the same time, the offense showed signs of life after being outgained 410-188 by Alabama. The Tigers’ first scoring drive covered 69 yards in three plays, with the final blow a 37-yard Davis touchdown run.

Not to be outdone, backfield mate C.J. Spiller led the next drive into the end zone, too, accelerating through the second level for a 37-yard scoring run, capping a four-play, 78-yard drive.

Citadel quarterback Bart Blanchard and FCS All-America receiver Andre Roberts punched holes in the Tigers’ secondary, leaving an uneasy feeling for the second half. In the first half, Blanchard completed 14 of 21 passes for 229 yards and a 41-yard touchdown toss to Roberts. On that play, Roberts exposed a mismatch with linebacker Scotty Cooper for an easy score down the left sideline.

He had four completions between 37 and 42 yards before halftime, forcing defensive coordinator Vic Koenning to change from man to zone coverage.

“They got five plays for 200 yards in the first half, and every time we were in man coverage,” Koenning said. “Obviously, man ain’t the answer to all evils, and we had to sit back in zone and be patient.”

It worked: after halftime, Blanchard was eight of 14 for 50 yards. Roberts finished with nine catches for 153 yards and the score, but only three for 13 yards in the second half.

“We realized those boys were going to make plays — their heart was as big as ours,” said senior safety Michael Hamlin, who finished with a school record-tying three interceptions. “I think we just went out, stayed focused and keep our eyes on the backfield.”

Clemson pulled away in the second half, scoring 21 unanswered points and pushing the lead to 42-7 before the Bulldogs scored 10 fourth-quarter points against reserve defenders.

For the starters, that made the fourth quarter a time to relax and let their collective worries go.

“(Last week) was very long,” said Spiller, who set a career high with three touchdowns (and 75 yards on six carries). You’re going to get praise, you’re going to get criticism, but I think this team did a great job of handling itself. There were no pointing fingers, no badmouthing any coaches. We just hung together as a unit. Now that we’ve got a win, hopefully we can get some of that criticism taken away.”

A revamped offensive line featuring two new starters (redshirt freshman guards Mason Cloy and David Smith) opened big holes for Davis and Spiller while protecting Harper well. Clemson rolled up 525 yards of total offense — 273 in the air and 252 on the ground.

Austin noted the new starters’ physicality, and so did coach Tommy Bowden.

“The biggest thing is to see if they can learn to be a lot more aggressive than they were last week, regardless of the competition,” he said. “You’re looking for a team that played with a little more intensity and aggression than what they did last week. If we got anything (out of the loss) I hope we learned we have to do that every week. I think at offensive line, where we didn’t last week, we did some of that today.”

Koenning wasn’t pleased with his defense, saying it was “not very good” after giving up 427 yards to the Bulldogs. But Bowden seemed more relaxed, saying “at least I’ll get to sleep tonight.”

And at long last, the Georgia Dome debacle had been pushed aside.

“This week felt like the longest week I’ve had since I was here,” Hamlin said. “All week, coaches have been down our throat, teachers have been down our throat, students have been down our throat. It just feels good to go out and get this win and get everybody back on track.”