How Clemson's win over Louisville impacts the College Football Playoff picture
CLEMSON, S. C. – When the stands emptied after midnight and the students giddily swept over the field like a giant orange wave, it was hard to remember which team played for the national championship last year and which was the up-and-coming striver.
Clemson stormed the field after beating Louisville.
That doesn’t seem right without context. So let’s apply some.
It does seem right when you consider that the red-hot Cardinals were ranked higher (third to the Tigers’ fifth), and when you consider that Louisville was favored, when you consider that Clemson trailed by eight with little more than seven minutes left after surrendering 26 unanswered points, and when you consider the divisional, conference, playoff and Heisman Trophy stakes of the game.
And it seems right for one more reason: this feral Death Valley crowd owned a considerable stake in Clemson’s pulsating, 42-36 victory – a game that was good enough to keep both teams’ College Football Playoff hopes alive.
One of the few things stopping the electrifying Lamar Jackson and the Louisville offense was sheer noise. The audio bombardment Clemson fans unleashed upon the Cardinals contributed to six pre-snap penalties – including false starts on the first two plays of the game, and one more crucial false start on the deciding drive in the final minute.
That last penalty moved Louisville from a fourth-and-7 at the Clemson 9-yard line to a fourth-and-12 from the 14. And when the Cardinals came up a yard short of the first down, the Clemson crowd could claim another victim.
“That’s what Death Valley will do to you,” said defensive coordinator Brent Venables.
Like his defensive players, Venables was exultant but exhausted afterward. The relentless Jackson pushed Clemson to the brink, leading an offense that reeled off 99 plays and piled up 568 yards – but came up one yard short of a first down and three yards short of a winning touchdown.
“We were on fumes,” Venables admitted.
“I’m spent,” said Clemson linebacker Ben Boulware, who played all 99 snaps on defense. “I’m so tired and drained, I don’t know what happened.”
What happened was this: Junior cornerback Marcus Edmond got enough of a hit on Louisville wide receiver James Quick to knock him out of bounds at the Clemson 3 on that fourth-down play. It frankly will not be remembered as a sell-out effort by Quick, who neither cut inside nor attempted to go over or through Edmond in an effort to pick up that crucial yard. But it also marked a final act of resilience from a traumatized Clemson defense.
Louisville came into this game second in the nation in plays from scrimmage 40 yards or longer with 11. It didn’t have a single play that long Saturday. The Tigers bent and bent and bent, but in the end refused to break.
“We made them earn it, so to speak,” Venables said, shaking his head. “I hated every minute of it, to be honest. It was agonizing.”
Jackson supplied the agony. The Heisman front-runner coming in is still the Heisman front-runner coming out, after hitting Clemson with 457 yards total offense – 295 passing and 162 rushing – and three total touchdowns.
After taking a beating and being frustrated in the first half, Jackson was almost unstoppable in the second. He had 319 yards after halftime, leading drive after drive, showcasing his jaw-dropping athleticism and electric arm.
“He’s tough,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. “We hit him. We hit him a bunch.”
“Lamar Jackson’s a damn good player,” Boulware said. “He’s the best player I’ve ever played against. His arm, his legs, his knowledge of the game – he’s a freak.”
A minor furor erupted in the first half over a tackle Boulware made on Jackson, a play the linebacker finished with his arm wrapped around the quarterback’s neck as he bent him backward to the ground. Jackson was angry after the play. Boulware insisted afterward it was not a cheap shot.
“It might have looked dirty,” he said. “But I was just trying to hold him back. He’s trying to make a yard, and I’m trying to stop him. It’s just football. If he thought it was a dirty play, I apologize.”
After guiding five straight scoring drives to start the second half, it appeared that Jackson would get the last laugh. But the routed Clemson defense rose up for two final stops, with some help from the special teams unit and the offense.
Down 36-28 and seemingly crumbling, Clemson got a huge, 77-yard kickoff return from receiver Artavis Scott. He was not the Tigers’ regular kick returner, but Swinney put him in that position after seeing his team just miss breaking a couple of earlier runbacks. Scott delivered, and it took Clemson just two plays to score and cut the deficit to 36-34 with 7:05 left.
Then Louisville had its first three-and-out of the half. Bobby Petrino is a master play caller, but his decision to go with three dropback passes on that drive, as opposed to running Jackson against a gassed defense, is open to second-guessing.
After punting, Clemson had the last chance it needed to display its championship mettle. Deshaun Watson, who began the season as the nation’s top quarterback only to be eclipsed by Jackson, led an 85-yard drive for the go-ahead score.
Watson completed four of five passes on the drive for 74 yards, including a 31-yard TD pass to tight end Jordan Leggett. For the game Watson had 397 total yards and five touchdown passes – Heisman numbers of his own – but they were counterbalanced by three interceptions and a fumble.
That score with 3:14 left gave Jackson the opportunity to make the final statement. He was at his best on that drive, either throwing or running for 63 yards of a 66-yard march inside the Clemson 10.
Then came the false start. And the pass to Quick that came up short.
Death Valley had claimed another victim, and Clemson had won another thriller here. Last year the Tigers withstood Notre Dame at the goal line, and in 2014 it took a goal-line stand to beat Louisville. They have a flair for the dramatic and a flair for winning, now owning the longest active home winning streak in the nation.
“We’ve won 19 in a row at home,” Swinney said. “Why not win 119? Why not just keep it going?”
With a home-field advantage so loud that it played a tangible part in winning this showdown, it’s hard to blame Dabo Swinney for thinking that’s possible.
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