CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Slowly but surely, the hints of green amid a sea of orange in Bank of America Stadium left the stands.
Miami fans had seen enough, watching Clemson go up 38-0 on their Hurricanes with a 27-yard touchdown connection between Kelly Bryant and Deon Cain. It was the stamp on one of the biggest beatdowns in the history of the ACC championship game — and the Hurricanes’ worst loss since getting beat 58-0 by Clemson in 2015.
And the fourth quarter hadn’t even started yet.
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If Clemson’s mission was to leave no doubt who the No. 1 team in the country was, then mission accomplished. The Tigers wholly dominated No. 7 Miami on Saturday, and the final score of 38-3 wasn’t indicative of just how badly Clemson beat Miami.
“Probably our best game of the year,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said in his postgame news conference. “That was our goal, was to play our best four quarters, to play championship football. And when you play championship football, you’ve got to play at your best.”
The divide between Clemson’s best and Miami’s best was about the size of Death Valley, and it was obvious from the outset. The Tigers looked comfortable and relaxed on the big stage. The Hurricanes looked shocked.
Clemson scored on its first three possessions of the game, and rode that to a 21-0 halftime lead, thanks in part to a magnificent start from Kelly Bryant, who completed his first 15 passes en route to a 23-of-29 day for 252 yards and a score (he added 22 yards and another touchdown on the ground as well). The Tigers then scored 17 more in the third, though the game was already out of reach.
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“It just shows they’re the class of our league,” Miami coach Mark Richt said after the game. “Right now they’re the measuring stick.”
Clemson was equally ferocious on defense, holding Miami to 64 combined first-half yards and limiting it to 214 for the game. Even when the Hurricanes got a short field after Clemson muffed the first punt of the game, the defense kept them out of the end zone — the Canes missed wide left on the ensuing field goal attempt. Clemson then held Miami to eight punts, a fumble and two interceptions on its next 11 drives before finally allowing a field goal on the Canes’ final drive.
“I didn’t think it was going to end up like this at all,” Miami linebacker Shaquille Quarterman said. “I expected a 60-minute brawl and it just didn’t happen like that.”
But neither Swinney nor his team view Saturday’s ACC championship as the peak of their season. And that’s bad news for the rest of the College Football Playoff field.
“We’re not a finished product. We never have that mindset,” Swinney said. “We’re always trying to get better, every single day, every single week. And this bunch, every time we line up, it’s the biggest game in the world. Because we’re going to get everybody’s best effort. And we embrace that. We love that. I love that.”
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Something else Swinney loved was the fact that Clemson’s win on Saturday was the team’s first three-peat in the ACC since 1986-88. And that points to another edge Clemson has over the rest of the playoff field that’s revealed at noon on Sunday.
This team knows how to win. It knows how to win on the big stage. It combines a balanced offense, led by a fantastic quarterback, with one of the most dominant defenses in college football. And it’s playing its best football at the end of the season. Can any other team with playoff hopes boast all of that?
In the end, Clemson showed in the ACC championship why it’s the No. 1 team in the country. And if Saturday’s game is anything to go off of, that won’t change once the season’s over.
