But what Clemson coach Dabo Swinney did after that, in my mind, was even worse.
Advertisement
The 100 represents the number of games Swinney has coached for the Tigers and his players provided a memory for him on Saturday night that he will never forget.
Deshaun Watson and Wayne Gallman fired off a warning flare to the rest of the playoff field in the convincing win.
“That was championship football”, Swinney said.
“We had a little “I love you” and “I love you back” session on the sideline, ‘” Swinney said. “I’m just having fun wit hit”.
Clemson was able to move down the field fairly easily in their first drive. The Tigers then added some insurance with a 27-yard field goal by Huegel. The first quarter would end with North Carolina leading 9-7.
T.J. Logan: He showed why the coaches value his big play ability. He completed 26-of-42 passes for 289 yards and three touchdowns. He rushed for 127 yards and two touchdowns.
But Watson wasn’t going to let the Tar Heels keep the lead for long. But Clemson put together scoring drives of 68, 75, 96 and 97 yards. With just under four minutes to go in the half, Ryan Switzer would haul in a pass to regain the lead at 16-14.
Green will be eligible to play in the Clemson’s national semifinal game after sitting out the second half.
“It’s the same things that attract me to it right now”, he said then, “(and it’s) that we have all the pieces of the puzzle to do what we’re doing right now….
Christian McCaffrey ran for 207 yards and a score, threw a touchdown pass, caught another and broke Barry Sanders’ single-season all-purpose yards record to make his Heisman Trophy case and lead No. 7 Stanford…
Watson ended the half going 19-of-32 passing for 191 yards and two scores.
Nazair Jones intercepted a pass from Clemson to take control of the ball in the final minutes of the third quarter. Clemson later converted a 4th and 4 at the UNC 38 to keep the drive moving.
Clemson racked up a conference championship game record 608 yards, eclipsing the 500-yard mark for the ninth consecutive game. Clemson knocked off Notre Dame, Florida State and UNC to close the season with three top 15 wins.
The Tigers weren’t done on offense. While the Tar Heels made some of those plays Saturday, they failed to turn them into touchdowns.
With touchdowns from Wayne Gallman and Artavis Scott in the third quarter, the Tigers took the lead 35-16.
North Carolina attempted their own fake punt in the third quarter, but with similar results when Joe Mangili’s pass fell incomplete. And so the Tar Heels and their fans have reason to feel cheated out of a chance to pull off a major upset. North Carolina, however, wasn’t done.
However, the officials had thrown a flag on the play: offside on UNC. He finished with 185 yards rushing, with two touchdowns. UNC covered it and the Tar Heels had the ball back at Clemson’s 34. UNC did score on a 17-yard TD pass from Williams to Switzer with 1:19 to play. There’s always going to be grit in this team. The offense hasn’t scored fewer than 20 points this year, and have all the talent to continue that streak against just about anybody.
Advertisement
The Tar Heels were called for being offside during the fourth quarter, a call that was challenged but ultimately upheld. “But not anymore. All it does is get us a chance to go play for it… but you can’t get any better than winning them all, and nobody made it easy on us”. That was ambitious, but the Tar Heels at least proved against the nation’s No. 1 team that they were a team deserving of a spot in the top 10, despite their meager resume.
