CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It had to be this way, you know. Nearly 35 years after Clemson won it all, the Tigers finally ended it all.
All those years of underachieving and heartache. All those times of good not great.
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And fortunately, for the wildly criticized College Football Playoff committee, all those hypotheticals of what happens if Clemson loses? Instead of focusing on what if, let’s zero in on what is:
Clemson is the best team in college football. A 45-37 victory over North Carolina in the ACC Championship Game simply underscored it all.
“On Aug. 3 we started this thing and said why not 15 out of 15 (games)?” said Clemson coach Dabo Swinney. “There are 128 (FBS) teams, and we’re the only one left unbeaten. We’ve had to earn it.”
And left no doubt in the process. Just how good is this team that hasn’t lost since last November?
Better than one-dimensional Alabama and its wicked defense. Better than Oklahoma and its reputation built on the backs of backup quarterbacks.
Better than anything Caveman Ball in the Big Ten can offer up, and better than the defending national champions that you just know would have found a way into the coveted four CFP spots, by gawd (I mean, Barry), had Clemson done what everyone searching for chaos hoped they would do.
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Instead Clemson did what it has done all season in the big moment: it squeezed the life out of it.
“Everyone was always expecting us to lose,” said Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson. “Every game, we keep proving people wrong.”
Just like they did against Notre Dame, and like they did after Dalvin Cook ran for 75 on the first play of the damn game, then got nothing of significance the rest of the way.
Like they did late Saturday night, when the defense got lazy and North Caorlina clawed back and the next thing you know, the Tar Heels are attempting an onside kick to get the ball back and try and get eight points to tie the game.
They got a break from the ACC officials on a blown offside call on North Carolina’s successful onside kick (shocking, I know), then made good of it on the redo by recovering the second onside kick and running out the clock.
“They missed the call,” said North Carolina coach Larry Fedora.
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It’s not like it would’ve mattered, anyway. Not against this defense; not against this team that has been making big things happen in critical moments all season.
Like it did week after week, with everyone expecting the very worst because what else has Clemson been after Danny Ford’s miracle team of 1981 and before a young cat named Dabo took over a reeling program in 2008? How could anyone have known that day, after Tommy Bowden quit/resigned/was fired and Swinney was asked to hold it all together as a place keeper, that he’d redefine it and make it greater and grander than anything anyone could have imagined.
This team never buckled this season, never wavered in Saturday night’s ACC Championship Game when North Carolina looked so good so early. Never flinched in a game that could create havoc with the college football postseason — or give it a surreal sense of meaning.
Everyone else can play what ifs; Clemson showed up here to end the discussion.
They did it with the game’s most dynamic player (Watson), and a defense that began the season with nine new starters and after 13 games, fell all of six places from its 2014 spot as the nation’s No. 1 defense.
If you think Clemson’s point-a-minute offense is impressive, the true genius in the metamorphosis of the little program that never could is the defense that finally did. Forget about the garbage points North Carolina scored, or the numbers South Carolina put up in a rivalry game.
Anyone can churn out big numbers on offense; it’s the foundation of today’s game. Not everyone, however, can play defense to stop those offenses when they absolutely have to have it.
So while the Clemson offense was rolling though another 100-play, 40-point, 600-yard victory, the defense was once again overshadowed despite making key stops when the game was in doubt — and setting up its overwhelming offense.
A unit that held UNC star tailback Elijah Hood to 65 yards, and forced quarterback Marquise Williams — the hottest player in the ACC over the last month of the season — into a miserable 11-of-33 passing performance.
“We had to get stops, and we had to get them early and set the tone,” said Clemson defensive end Shaq Lawson. “We knew if we did that, the offense would take care of the rest.”
That meant Watson, who never reached his full potential last season because of a devastating ACL knee injury, taking control of the game. In this season the remarkable — he made it back from major knee surgery in less than nine months — he made it look easy in the biggest game of all.
Watson toyed with the UNC defense all night, getting 289 yards passing and three touchdowns and 131 yards rushing and two more scores. He cemented a spot at the Heisman Trophy ceremonies next weekend, and might have done enough to win it.
More than anything, he elevated Clemson — long lost and now finally found Clemson — to the elite of college football.
They are what Florida State was two years ago. They are what Alabama and LSU and Florida were in the SEC’s BCS golden era.
They are everything they weren’t after Ford’s team won it all, and raised the bar to perfection. It might have taken 34 years, but Clemson is there again.
“There has never been a team in college football that has won 15 games,” Swinney said. “I told our guys, why not be the best ever?”
They’re two games away from ending that argument, too.