With this only being the second year of the playoff, there’s no precedent for or against moving the Tar Heels up four spots or more in the final ranking. Clemson (12-0, 8-0) goes from facing three three-win teams (Syracuse, Wake Forest and South Carolina) to playing No. 8 North Carolina.
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“We kind of have that championship mentality every week, but this one, there is no next week”, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said.
“We’ve got to prove everything”, said Swinney, whose Tigers join No. 4 Iowa as one of two undefeated teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. “I don’t think there’s any question that the ACC should be wherever, in one of them games”. “You know, I can live with that”.
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The eighth-ranked Tar Heels would likely need outside help to leapfrog the teams ahead of them.
And unbeaten Clemson ranks seventh in total defense (289 yards a game) and 17th in scoring defense (18.8 points allowed per game).
The high-stakes battle pits North Carolina’s potent offense (averaging 41.3 points) and dynamic quarterback Marquise Williams (also the Tar Heels’ second-leading rusher, averaging 65.5 yards) against Clemson’s potent offense (37.9 points per game) and dynamic quarterback and Heisman Trophy hopeful Deshaun Watson.
Swinney said Watson is the complete package, comparing him to former New York Yankees relief pitcher Mariano Rivera.
“The offense has been efficient all year, and it has to continue to be efficient for North Carolina to have a chance in this game”, he said. Now the Tar Heels are back in Charlotte, this time sporting an 11-game win streak, a lot more fans and enough success that they have changed the narrative from the sense of impending doom a lengthy NCAA investigation into the school has provided. “That is our No. 1 key to victory in every game we go into, is taking care of the football, and if you go back and look in the games that we didn’t turn it over at all, we’ve been pretty dominant”. While offenses have not dominated in college football the way they did in 2013 or 2014, they dictate matchups and decisions in ways 1981’s coaches – Danny Ford of Clemson and Dick Crum of UNC – never could have dreamed of.
The humbling experience was an eye-opener for the confident senior, one that reminded him how much more important team goals are than individual statistics. “They’ve got a rock that they can rely on, and I think he makes it extremely hard for a defense”. Nobody else has been able to this year, but nobody else plays with the tempo of the Tar Heels.
North Carolina has had a great season, but Clemson is the best team the Tarheels have played all year.
“The Clemson Police Department, Pickens County Coroner’s Office, and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is investigating the death”. The sophomore’s ripped off 1,280 yards and 16 touchdowns, a almost five-fold improvement from last season. The then 19-year-old true freshman scorched the Tar Heels defense, completing 27 of 36 passes for 435 yards, while throwing for six touchdowns and one interception. This is the sort of dream game a city salivates for when it bids for events like the ACC football championship. Mack Hollins leads the team in yardage (670) and touchdowns (8), but Ryan Switzer, Quinshad Davis, and Bug Howard are all big-play threats in the passing game.
Clemson has posted more than 500 yards of offense in eight consecutive games and averages 502.5 yards per game. The Tarheels comes in at 11-1 while the Tigers are a flawless 12-0.
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This is a program that hasn’t won an ACC title since 1980, and its first conference championship game is also this team’s first spotlight game of the year. “We’ve got to earn everything we get, and that’s just the way it is”. UNC lost that game.
